To err is human.
Engine rebuild status from last weekend - nearing completion! The clutch cover was on, kickstart lever on. Haven't set the valve lash yet, but just need to flip the engine round and fit the stator and flywheel, then the stator cover and the bottom end would be finished!
Cleaned up the flywheel and painted the timing marks to make them a little easier to see. New OEM woodruff key for the flywheel as the old one was a little chewed up. But that's when it happened. I fumbled the key. The tiny little metal key. The key that could cause untold damage if it was bouncing around inside the engine, slipped out of my oily fingers and jumped down one of the oil drain cut outs from the stator recess and fell inside the engine casing, nowhere to be seen. I stood there for a full five minutes in disbelief. Maybe I didn't see that right and it just fell on the floor? An hour of searching the bench and the floor under the bench, and the total floor area of the shed "just in case it bounced about" left me in a foul mood. I went inside it leave it alone and calm down.
Sunday I came back with an endoscope. And a magnetised screwdriver. Poking and prodding. Looking here...
...and there...
..looking everywhere. Nothing to be seen. I tried jiggling the engine about so if there was anything loose it would move out of its hiding place, but no joy. There was nothing for it, there was only one safe option left.
Tear down started. This represented a couple of hours work. It could have been done faster, but I was mighty pissed off and didn't want to damage anything, so took my time.
Splitting the engine cases apart.
Took the "top" half off. Tore the gasket in the process.
There's the bastard.
For future reference the magnetic screw driver would have worked if I could have found it when I was poking around before.
I fished the bag out of the bin and put the key back in there so I don't lose it while I put all this mess back together.
But first I need to clean up the mating surfaces to remove the "old" gasket I'd only just installed 6 months ago. Luckily a new gasket set is one of the few parts I could just order off the shelf without (covid) delays, should be here in time for next weekend.
So what have I learnt? There are three cut outs underneath the flywheel in the casing for oil to drain back into the engine. I will be covering them with masking tape until the woodruff key is installed, and I will make sure my hands aren't covered in oil next time I need to install a small component.
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