Retrieve a lost valve without removing the head!

[lewis15498]

If you are replacing your valve seals and drop a valve into the cylinder, this is how you can retrieve it. You can prevent this from happening by bringing the piston in the cylinder you are working on to TDC then feed rope in through the spark plug hole, so the valve will sit on the rope should it fall. However if you are searched for this, it's probably too late.

First you need to determine if the valve has fallen completely in the cylinder or not. Remove the spark plug and shine a flashlight down the spark plug hole. Look into the cylinder through the valve guide. If you cant see anything then you are in luck as the valve hasnt fallen all of the way through. If you can see light, then the valve is lost in the cylinder.

If the valve is still in the guide there is two approaches you can take, either use a bent coat hanger. or an extendo magnet. Using the bent hanger put it down through the spark plug hole, try to get the bent end underneath the valve and lift it back up. Using an extendo magnet it must be 5mm or less in diamater, or it wont fit through the valve guide. Stick the magnet in the valve guide and pull the valve back up. If your having trouble, try combining the two methods.

Now for the fun part! What to do if the valve is lost in the cylinder. You will need the following tools.
Flashlight
Metal coat hanger
Small extendo magnet
Needle nose pliers
5mm Round USB cable
Alcohol/nail polish (not pictured)
Friend (not pictured)
Ratchet, Spark plug socket, 19 MM Socket (not pictured)


Remove the spark plug.
Extend the extendo magnet, put it in the spark plug hole and let it sit on the piston. Using the 19mm on the main pulley bolt. Very slowly (so you dont damage the valve, cylinder, exc) turn it while watching the magnet shaft. If it starts go go up, turn it the other way. Continue down until the shaft starts to come back up. This is BDC for that pistion. This will give you enough clearance to get the valve back.

Take the USB cable and cut it. The cut must be flush. Now using a razor blade, strip all of the insulation off of the cable leaving only a few MM of insulation on the cut end. when you cut the insulation taper the cable side of the insulation you left on the end so it is a smooth transition so that wont get stuck on anything. This will expose a metal wire wrapping, cut that out too. So now you should have a cable with insulation for the first few mm then tapers in to for thin insulated wires. Note: The wire is stripped to make it more flexible. some of the pictures do not show the wire being stripped. These were pictures from our first attempt before I stripped the wire realizing it needed to be more flexible.

Feed the cut end into the valve guide. The guides ID is 6MM which is why you need 5mm cable. Feed it in while shining the light into the spark plug hole until you can see the wire through the spark plug hole.


Using the coat hanger bent as pictured above. Stick the hook end into the sparkplug hole and hook the wire and pull it out. Twisting the tool while pulling the wire through the spark plug hole will make it easier. Be sure that the hook is small enough so that it does not scrape the sides of the spark plug hole, otherwise you could damage the threads.


Now that you have the wire going into the valve guide, and out of the spark plug hole, use the extendo magnet to fish out the valve. You have to get the magnet on the top of the valve to pull it out. Use the flashlight to see what your doing, and if the valve isnt standing upright, use the non magnetic side of the magnet to stand the valve upright first.



Once you get it out, have your friend grab the valve with the needle nose pliers. If your plier's teeth are jagged, you can wrap electrical tape around them, so you dont damage the valve stem surface. While he holds it use the alcohol/nail polish with paper towels to clean any oil/gunk of of the top of the valve, also clean the end of the USB cable. Then apply super glue to the end of the USB cable and firmly press it squarely on the head of the valve stem. It should take about a minute to set. You cannot have any glue on the side of the valve stem as it will get the valve stuck in the guide. The key is to only use a dab of super glue. In this case more is not better, its worse.


Now that the superglue has set, slowly lower the valve back into the cylinder and feed the wire back in with it. Then even slower, pull the wire back out through the guide, and with any luck the valve will come with it. If it doesn't try again. It worked for us on the second try.


Have a friend grab it with the needle nose pliers. THen using the 19mm bring the piston up to TDC as described before. then feed some rope in to the cylinder so if the valve drops again, it will just sit on the rope and you wont loose it.


This is kind of a Macgyver fix so if thats not your thing go pull the head and while your at it get a valve job and a new HG. But if your trying to save money and keep your car drivable than this is definitely the way to go.

Special thanks to Ray (Rayall01) for helping me with not only the formulation of this plan but also the excecution. He drove 2 hours to get here, and then we intentionally dropped a valve in a junk motor to do this just to prove it was doable! Now thats dedication!