I own a couple of Wera Zyklop ratchets and two small socket sets, and use them fairly regularly on smaller projects. I use them mainly on things like mechanical assemblies and the such, and have grown to really like them. These ratchets are shorter than “standard” sized ratchets, but the ability to lock them in at a couple of angles between 0 and 90° is quite convenient.
The other day I went through a dry run to remove my car battery. I haven’t yet decided if I would bring a replacement battery home in my wife’s car, or if I would jump my car and have the new battery installed at the parts shop (they do it for free). So I just wanted to make sure I could get the old battery out quickly.
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Removing the battery didn’t take much – a 10mm shallow socket, deep socket, and combo wrench.
I already had a Zyklop 1/4″ ratchet and mini socket set out for something else, so I brought it and a couple of sockets out to the car.
One of the bolts was easily removed, the other securing fastener was a nut that had longer travel along a threaded stud. I only brought a shallow socket and wrench for the battery cables, and knew I needed a deep socket for the nut. Since I was losing light, I figured I would come back to things in the morning. I started to tighten things back up.
I realize I’m going to get chided for this, and I probably should, but I place half blame on the ratchet, and half blame on myself.
I needed to change the ratchet angle from “spinner mode” to regular higher-torque 90° position. What I forgot was that the flex-head angle and quick release mechanisms are controlled by the same button when the ratchet is in its inline position.
When the ratchet is set to any other angle, the quick release button and angle locking button are in different positions. When at 0°, the angle locking button pushes into the quick release button.
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And so this is how my 10mm socket fell into the engine bay.
Ding
Ding
Thud
I heard a thud, which is not good. The socket didn’t bounce around to the ground, it hit a non-metallic part in the engine bay and got stuck there.
I knew I should have used my Gearwrench Roto Ratchet, or a plain Jane non-flex-head ratchet. But nooooo, I had to use my Zyklop. My Wera ratchets have seen plenty of use, just not in an engine bay.
I then spent maybe an hour and a half trying to find the darn thing. Worse, I lost daylight and had to find the socket in the dark since I don’t have a garage or even a driveaway. I clipped a Zebralight LED light to the hood clasp, and it lit up the engine bay enough to not give up and wait until morning.
I couldn’t find my Extech inspection camera, and ended up using a General Tools PalmScope. The PalmScope worked reasonably well. Its narrow camera head and cable was a plus, but its floppiness made routing and angling the camera head a little challenging.
I finally found the socket wedged between the chassis and two white hoses, and picked it out with my fingers.
If it turned out that I couldn’t find the socket, I knew it was far enough from any moving components to not pose a substantial hazard, but I’m the kind of person that doesn’t like to leave things like this unresolved.
In hindsight, I should have used a different ratchet. Any other ratchet. I am far from blameless, as I should have remembered that quick release mechanism is toggled when changing ratchet head angles from the 0° position. I could have also been more careful.
The Wera Zyklop is a great ratchet for industrial and mechanical applications, but I’m not so sure it’s very suitable for auto work. Zyklop ratchets are also shorter than typical standard-length ratchets, and their handles are harder to clean oil, grease, and grime off of.
A quick Google search shows that I’m not the first or only person to ever drop a socket in an engine bay, although that doesn’t make this situation any less embarrassing.
Right now I don’t do much of my own auto maintenance, but that might change when I have a garage, backyard, or more controlled setting than a shared parking lot. When the time comes for me to anything else in the engine bay, this lesson – to avoid ratchets with too-easily-toggled quick release buttons – is one I am not likely to forget anytime soon.
Have you ever dropped or lost anything in your car’s engine bay?
JR
Yes, I believe all of my 10mm sockets have been lost in engine bays over the years. I swear there must a dimensional rift in engine bays that swallows sockets up.
matt
When I sell my old cars I usually charge a bit extra- for all the spare tools and fasteners that are safely stored away in the engine bay.
Andrew
I’ve lost about 10 diffrent plastic car trim screws inside all of the cars I’ve worked on. Those things fly.
Russell Berger
20-some odd years ago I was driving my new-to me 1970 Cutlass Convertible when I heard a loud clang like something fell off the underside of the car. I stopped and looked back only to find a heavy-duty 1/2-inch wrench. Previous owner must have been working on the car and forgotten about it, lol.
DanG
Yes I’ve dropped many a tool in my days of being under the hood. I can recall retrieving most of my tools and yet have lost a few into the bowels of the hot engine and never to be seen again. My days under the hood now are fewer and farther out. (which means I’m still doing the routine maintenance and not redesigning the engine) I have done some of the stupidest darnedest things and still can chuckle about them now. One time I was working on my brakes on my 68 Camaro I left my favorite SK 3/8 standard socket set on top of the vinyl roof. I backed out of my dad’s driveway and heard this sliding noise and then a crash. I got of the car and looked towards the back. There were sockets all over the street and a nice new scratch on my trunk. Then there was a time recently that I had to use a lug nut key to refasten all the locks on my tires. When I got to the last one I forgot to take it off and while driving the darn thing spun off and was never to be seen again. I panicked since I did not have a replacement but after checking around I found out that the Toyota service department has a key set you can verify the right key for replacement. Stuart, even the best of us has their days.
Mac
Welcome to the ‘hood… Can’t even begin to tell all the stuff I’ve dropped. Doesn’t matter anyway, as I’m invoking the 5th amendment. Lol. And if memory serves, the stuff that did fall through ALL went to the EXACT center of the vehicle. Or bounced 37 ft away.
Brian Buehler
I would assume that any person who spends much time working on cars has managed to do similar with tools, fasteners and parts. Sometimes, it makes for quite a challenge to find and retrieve what has been dropped…
No chiding from me 🙂
Hang Fire
Stuart,
It’s not a car job until you skin your knuckles, and drop a tool into parts unknown.
There are two retreival tools you should add to your toolbox. One is a telescoping magnetic pickup tool, the other is a flexible claw pickup tool. Not that I ever need either of mine. 🙂
Stuart
I have both, used them plenty of times. In this case, I would have needed a flexible magnetic pick-up tool, but I was able to reach the socket with pointer and middle fingers.
Michael
I have a flexible magnetic pick up that has a led in the center of the magnet. It has saved me a lot of aggravation
Dave L.
That’s why I have a magnet on a stick. Of course it won’t work with plastic, stainless, aluminum or brass…:)
SteveR
I’ve been fortunate in that when I have dropped something, I’ve always been able to find it within a few minutes. It pays to let things go when the sun is setting and don’t start a project until the following day. One thing you can do, though, is buy yourself a strong extendible magnet, an inspection mirror or two for restricted areas and a mechanical finger device.
These tools are all available from Ullman (on Amazon and other sources), and there are other manufacturers, too. Ullman makes an extendible magnet with a 16-pound pull, so it’s good for retrieving hand tools that fell just out of reach. The mechanical finger device is about two feet long with a plunger that opens and extends the four fingers to reach or grasp the nut, screw or tool you’ve dropped, so it’s not dependent on the item being metallic. The magnet will often find those items that are steel or iron, and the inspection mirror will help find it after the initial frustration of losing the item in a dark corner of your engine bay. They also have mirrors that come with lights, or you can use a small flashlight (handheld) or in your mouth if both hands are needed.
These three tools have saved me enough times that they’re a must-have in my tool bag. They’re all small enough to be kept in a carry bag in the trunk or just a drawer at home. The mechanical finger tool (the Claw) is handy for grasping coins that fell behind a washer/dryer, a dropped pen that rolled just out of reach behind a fridge, etc. Sometimes you can get by with a pencil or rod that has a small ball of duct tape on the end for smaller, lighter items.
Bruce
I’ll one up that, I closed up the engine bay with a 9/16 wrench sitting on the radiator. Quick trip around the block made it slide onto the battery. I heard it and figured it was lost on the road. Nope, sitting there happy as a clam. For that level up screw up it should have shorted across the terminals…
Yadda
I have a collection of 10mm wrenches I found over the years all of them I’m sure due to people leaving them in the engine compartment after changing out a battery.
Ktash
Many years ago, I had a tire puncture from a large/long bolt. It punctured from the inside out. Whoever put on my new tires apparently left a large bolt loose in one of them. Luckily the tires were covered since new, but kind of scary to contemplate the safety of this blowing out at high speeds. Someone I knew said it might have been sabotage since this was at a time when there was lots of dissatisfaction with the Sears auto service employment pay scale and policies (tires were bought at Sears). I’d hope that wasn’t the case, though.
Doc
I lost a 10mm in the frame of my wife’s Honda. The braze-on bolt on the inside of the frame broke off as I was trying to loosen the nut holding the door detent in place. I found a small access hole for the bolt head, and just as I thought I had it I dropped the deep 10mm and short extension right down the hole. I swear I still hear that thing rolling around some days.
CraigH
On one of my first used cars, a 1980 Honda Civic, I left the socket wrench on top of the air filter cover and closed the hood. BAM! An instant dimple poking up in the middle of the hood!
The most recent dumb thing I did was leaving the oil cap off after adding oil to my daughter’s Mazda Protege. One of her friends noticed oil seeping out from the gap between the hood and the body. There was oil all over the inside of the engine compartment!
In between those two incidents, I have accidentally dropped bolts into the engine compartment. I always swear up a storm when a 10 minute job ends up taking an hour because of my klutziness!
Remember: If you never get hurt while playing football, it may be because you are sitting on the bench all the time! So at least we have some fun and take pride in working on our cars.
joe
So,
Stuart:
Try losing something in the engine compartment of a newer Volvo. Those suckers are packed so tight, I thought I’d never find a lost screwdriver….
That why we have mechanics who specialize in European cars, I guess. they sure do charge a pretty penny though. Been waiting for the right moment to replace a front turn signal…..
Webley
Sometimes those dropped tools get recycled – on my first job I was standing by an intersection doing some road construction surveying. A Oldsmobile whips around the corner and – clang clang clang – a 10″ Thorsen 3/8″ extension rolls to my feet. I still have and use the extension!
Jesse Neil
I had an 86 Chevy pick up that swallowed a few sockets in the fenders. I was 17 then and not my sockets, so they stayed in there. If that were to happen today, I’d get them out.
Don
Worse! Working on my ’65 Corvair, I dropped a socket into the cooling rotor at the top of the engine! Afraid to start the engine and having the socket slamming into the cylinders – what a screw up.
tim
Ive twice now lost my ingersoll rand 3/8 drive 9/16 deep well once working on my gfs car and once in a machine I work on at work only to find it still attatched to the bolt head the next time I was in either. (Best sockets ever though. My babies)
Have dropped so many tools inside vehicles and machinery that once every couple months we do a cleansweep/toolhunt at work.
Phil
Having had the whole FOD thing drilled into me from 30+ years of aerospace work, I would’ve disassembled the car until I found the tool. As it stands, I’ve done just that too many times to count.
Mahalo
The same exact thing happened to me. Lost a 10 mm socket to no-man’s-land while changing a battery in my old Ranger. It has that long threaded bolt that you described, and what a pain the butt it was to crack that corroded thing loose with little room for the arc of a wrench or ratchet. The socket never made its way to the ground, and who knows where it’s at now.
SteveR
Mahalo–Sounds like you could have used a palm or finger ratchet, coupled with an extension. The handle on one of those ratchets is between 1-1/2 and 2 inches wide, and there’s no swing arc of the tool body as with a regular ratchet or wrench. Another possibility is a T-handled spinner, which coupled with an extension would be tall enough to crank on to break a fastener loose (or tighten it).
If you don’t have one, a stubby ratchet (straight or flex-head) comes in handy as well; they’re useful when changing out spark plugs, which normally aren’t in super-tight.
Depending on space requirements, you might also need a U-joint or a wobble-type extension with any of these.
Consuelo
Thank you gentlemen for the stories of lost sockets, etc. , and for the recommendation of magnet tools, etc. I lost a socket today while trying to remove the washer on the battery post. I hope I’m as blessed as all of you in that no harm will come to my car. Thank you for the peace of mind that your sharing gave me.
Dee
At least your Zyclops ratchet holds onto your tools. The last two I ordered will hold onto the sockets well, but the extensions fall off on their own without any help. Very sad for something so well made otherwise.
Dee
Hey, the Wera rep in the US replaced one of my Zyclops sets upon seeing my complaint on ADVrider. Great job to Wera!!!!!!