Aluminum foil inside injector port. I feel stupid.........

[bondoking]

I pulled the injectors to send in for ultrasonic cleaning and decided that leaving the ports open wasn't a good idea, so I crumpled up a bit of foil for each port to block them off. OOPS ! One piece was a little too small and slid into the port and disappeared into the guts of the L28. It is about the size of a jelly bean and my mechanic says it will probably just blow through when i crank the engine because it is foil. I am somewhat skeptical and have visions of a bent valve, but I'm not real crazy about trying to pull off an intake manifold either. I am a dentist, not a real gearhead like some of you guys. What says the peanut gallery ? Fire it up and pray when the injectors come back, or pull the manifold and retrieve the garbage ? Help !

[EScanlon]

At a WAG, why not remove all the spark plugs and injectors, then slowly rotate the engine by hand (wrench) and blow high pressure compressed air in through the injector hole and see if you can get the piece of foil to blow out the spark plug hole?

Others will chime in, but if you're talking a small piece of aluminum foil and not a solid chunk of aluminum then more than likely it won't cause major damage if any damage at all. But like you, I'm more of a bodyman than a mechanic so I'll bow down to other's opinions.

E

[Wade Nelson]

Ok, how about NOT rotating the engine, but simply blowing compressed air through each SPARK PLUG HOLE in turn (at least one of them has to have an intake valve open) with the air meter disconnected / snorkel off, throttle held wide open, and see if you can blow it BACKWARDS out the intake manifold.

Or take the throttle body off completely. Chances are you can even SEE it then, and that's an easy do/undo.

I'd give you at least a 70% chance you can get it to come out if you screw around long enough.

And just for perspective, if this is the worst screw-up in your mechanic career, you got off pretty light, .

[alternativez]

Try a small diameter hose adapted to fit on your vacuum cleaner. Use the injector port or the spark plug port. Worked like a charm to retrieve a plastic injector cap for me once. Good luck!

[240260280z]

At low temperatures, aluminum can be attracted to a magnet.

But the vacuum and hose through the plug hole method seems to be a good easy first try.

Edited January 2, 2013 by Blue

[John Coffey]

Don't run the engine with the foil inside it. Its still a piece of metal no matter how thin it is. Take off the throttle body and put the shop vac on the intake manifold opening. Be sire to empty the shop vac before doing this so you can verify that you got the piece out of the engine.

[EScanlon]

I blew it with the rotating the engine bit. I was thinking more of not letting it blow through the exhaust or intake valves but didn't process the thought completely.

I'm glad there are others here who chimed in!

E

[TomoHawk]

The vacuum hose on the spark plug hole will probably work the best. You gotta suck out of the bigger hole: the spark plug hole, so there's no way you can blow it back out the intake.

But the important thing is to make sure you have one or both valves open first!

[Zed Head]

Following Tomohawk's suggestion - the first thing you should do is see if the intake valve for that injector port was or is open. If the valve is not open, then the foil piece is probably sitting there waiting to fall in if you turn the engine over. If the valve is open, it might still be sitting on the back of the valve head. With a bright light you might be able to see it through the injector port. You might be surprised. If you can see it, rig up a small diameter vacuum hose so that your shop vac pulls a vacuum on it and suck it out like liposuction.