Broke the tip of a plastic funnel in the engine while adding engine oil.
If you take a flashlight and look down the fill hole can you see the piece?
I looked down the fill hole and couldn’t find the piece.
Thanks for your quick response
Cassidy
Probably won’t hurt anything. Plastic. The alternative is to partially disassemble the engine to get the piece out. Your call.
Out of desperation I might try using an endoscope to see if I can locate the piece, then disassemble what I had to in order to retrieve it. But on a Panamera that could be a lot.
Is the oil fill in the valve cover or is it direct to pan. If in the valve cover, that is all that needs to be removed and it should be done asap. The odds of it damaging anything are slim but I’d still want it out of there. If the oil fill is direct to pan, don’t worry about it. The oil pickup tube has a screen on it to prevent picking up debris.
I’m not familiar with this engine . . .
That said, is there ANY way the piece of plastic could come in contact with the timing chains or guides?
If so, I WOULD be losing sleep about a worst-possible case scenario
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It does look like the oil fill is right on top of the timing chain doesn’t it. If so, then the timing chain cover will also have to come off.
I’d start w/the vdo inspection idea posted above. These gadgets used to be very expensive, but now available at $75 or less. Plus you might drop something else in there next week, and you’ll have the camera already … lol …
One of those small angled dental mirror tools might do the job too. In any event it will be nearly impossible to retrieve until you can see it. If that were my car I’d want to remove it before starting the engine, whatever it took.
https://www.harborfreight.com/digital-inspection-camera-61839.html
One further note. I discovered it is easy to make my own very sturdy funnel for adding engine oil. I just cut the top off a mouthwash bottle, and use the top half as a funnel. It fits into the oil fill hole nicely, doesn’t need to be held. When done with the filling I just toss my homebrew funnel into the garbage, no need to clean it.
If you really want to go after this piece of plastic, then be prepared to tear the engine apart.
For all you know, it could be sitting on top of the head? Or it fell down the timing chain and is sitting in the oil pan?
So, start by removing the valve cover. Or don’t worry about it.
Tester
Agreed… can’t grip what you can’t see.
lol Just make sure the mirror is tight. Years ago, did an inline-6 rebuild. When done, one of my sockets was missing. I went looking, the darned mirror head fell off. Had to take the valve cover off. (The socket was on the ground.) Dumb rookie moves.