Dropped a bolt into an inconvenient location

Blow on it

 

The correct answer to that question is “I work in the medical profession”.
Which usually results in “Step out the vehicle for me, Sir.”

 

Cheech, Chong and Me!

 

That should work/get the job done!

 

Can’t use a Coat hanger or chicken wire to poke it out?

 

Thank God, I work for a company that makes surgical instruments. I have all kinds of probing/grabbing things.

I once changed a leaking rear wheel cylinder on my old T=100 without removing the brake shoes. I used a rib spreader for that one. I was the coolest kid on the block that day!!

 

I read somewhere about a missing bolt getting thrown through the radiator. Get it out of there using the above suggestions.

 

@netman86, definitely don't run the engine again until it's out of there. I don't know if the bolt could suddenly get wedged against the water pump or something equally important and take a chunk out of it, but you don't want to find out the hard way. No when it's so easy to get that fan clutch off.

While you have the belt loosened, check all of your pulleys, see if any bearings are making noise or spinning too freely. Won't take but a few extra minutes.

 

I imagine something like this will happen

 

I knew @Jimmyh was an old stoner

 

A very viable solution has been offered with the bendable wire with magnet attached. Ignore at your own risk.

 

I've got quite the collection of magnetic retreivers.

I wonder if I'm the only one who notices, when I drop a fastener, it could go right, left, back, stay where it fell, or go under the vehicle. It rarely goes anywhere but under.

Then if I drop one in the engine bay that doesn't fall through to the ground, sometimes I can find it. Sometimes there's no finding it anywhere, until I move it, then there it is on the ground, sometimes.

 

I too have a collection of grabby tools- but due to circumstances only a few are available where I'm at right now.

Magnet stick is a no go for sure- I am curious about what this "safety wire" is.

Those lovely curved thingies are called hemostats where I'm from. I've got those too- not going to reach inside this pulley... MIGHT have avoided dropping it in there in the first place, but here we are!

Since it will only take a few minutes to pop that housing off and get it out, that bolt will come out just after breakfast tomorrow. For some reason I assumed I would have to pull the entire shaft (is that a water pump?!) and get my pulley pullers out of storage to remove a press fit pulley to get this apart. That wouldn't be very toyota-like, but then again neither is adding these variable valve timing thingies that reduce the reliability of my tacoma...

 

That is quite a collection you have there. LOL

 

The bell shaped one is great for retrieving. The side doesn’t stick to metal, just the bottom. So it doesn’t get stuck while fishing it down.

The one in the very back is good for reaching around behind something.

 

A length of old school wire coat hanger or equivalent with a small neo magnet attached with 5 minute epoxy to assure it stays attached to the wire. Unlike most all the manufactured grabby/sticky gizmos, it's smaller dimensionally and can bend in limitless configurations. If you got the bolt in there, this will get it out.

 

copper wire, with a magnet on the end. you can bend it however you like and the wire won't magnetize itself to anything.

bubble gum on the end of a stick has saved me some time before.

as a last resort to prevent the bolt from jiggling, put a strong magnetic somewhere that will hold the bolt in a safer spot for the meantime.

 

No, the pulley will just come off once the belt is loosened and the nuts are removed. Here's a water pump replacement thread that has the steps and a nice picture showing the water pump flange that the pulley/fan gets bolted to. No need to do any of the coolant draining and hose removal, of course. The author removes the fan clutch before loosening the belt, I'd do that in reverse.

There's a nice spot in the tensioner assembly to insert a rod or allen wrench to keep the tensioner in the loosened position. I searched for a post with a good picture but couldn't find what I was looking for. If you can't find it, you can take the tension off the belt and remove it from one of the pulleys.

Edit: See this video at 2:37 or so, shows pulling the belt off the power steering pulley once the belt is loosened. Plus there's a good shot of things around the water pump.

 

thanks!
I've done full engine rebuilds in the past (nothing this modern though) so I wasn't scared off by the belt. Locking the tensioner open would have been nice...

Just got it back together, hardest part was finding the idler pulley- there must be ten things on this belt!

I pulled the fan assembly off and didn't notice the bolt fall out. Disheartening, but its all back together now and I started it up... no rattle sound, so I guess it must have come out? usually anything that falls makes a loud PANG as it hits the aftermarket skid plate.
Watch it start to rattle again next time I take it out... Still need to do a proper test drive for the VTTi replacement I did that caused me to drop the bolt.

VERY glad this just unbolted and didn't require removing the radiator to get a pulley puller in there.