Dropped nut calamity,

[Maurice_Minor]

I was changing the battery on my 1967 Minor when I dropped the nut that attaches the positive cable to the starter solenoid. It disappeared between the starter motor & the engine block. Its been 50 years since I meddled with a Moggie & AF sizes & I was wondering if someone could tell me what nut size/ type I need to get to replace it.

[simmitc]

It may depend on when the solenoid was fitted. I've got one that takes 5/16 UNC and one that takes M8. No doubt other sizes are used too. The original nut is probably sitting on the ledge at the bottom of the block, and if you remove the starter motor (two bolts only) you will probably be able to retrieve it - always supposing that it's not simply lying under the car at the moment.

Academic, but I'm not sure why you would disconnect the lead from the solenoid when changing the battery?

[Sleeper]

Because it's the live lead?

Maybe he disconnected it at the battery?

John ;-)

[Myrtles Man]

You could do worse than get one of these:-

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275204464874 ... BMtMqZ05ph

[oliver90owner]

You could do worse than get one of these:-

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275204464874 ... BMtMqZ05ph

Are all these nuts ferrous?

[rocco]

A telescopic magnet is what I was going to suggest, it doesn't always work but it's well worth trying it.

[Maurice_Minor]

It may depend on when the solenoid was fitted. I've got one that takes 5/16 UNC and one that takes M8. No doubt other sizes are used too. The original nut is probably sitting on the ledge at the bottom of the block, and if you remove the starter motor (two bolts only) you will probably be able to retrieve it - always supposing that it's not simply lying under the car at the moment.

Academic, but I'm not sure why you would disconnect the lead from the solenoid when changing the battery?

The positive cable was all buckled up & I wanted to straighten it up.

[ManyMinors]

It is amazing how sometimes nuts and screws can seem to completely disappear The same solenoid was used on many many cars of the period. Do you have a garage close-by who work on old cars? Take the solenoid there and see if they can find a nut that fits. There are still old established garages around who have boxes and boxes of bits and pieces under the workbenches!

[Maurice_Minor]

This nut HAS disappeared, maybe into another dimension. I have just spent 30 minutes under the car with a piece of coat hanger running it up & down between the starter motor & the engine, I then heard something fall to the floor, it definitely sounded like a nut, can I find it? Can I hell! As it happens my brother has been dismantling old cars for the last 50 years, he has boxes & boxes of nuts & he concurs with what you have said.
However I am obsessional about finding this infernal nut.
I have heard men have gone insane when they have embarked on similar quests.

mad-man-crazy.gif (334.62 KiB) Viewed 1152 times

[ManyMinors]

Haha! These old cars can indeed drive you NUTS

[geoberni]

This nut HAS disappeared, maybe into another dimension. I have just spent 30 minutes under the car with a piece of coat hanger running it up & down between the starter motor & the engine, I then heard something fall to the floor, it definitely sounded like a nut, can I find it? Can I hell! As it happens my brother has been dismantling old cars for the last 50 years, he has boxes & boxes of nuts & he concurs with what you have said.
However I am obsessional about finding this infernal nut.
I have heard men have gone insane when they have embarked on similar quests.
mad-man-crazy.gif

There's a number of rules relating to dropped items, including but not limited to....
Just because logic says it fell right through to the floor, it probably hasn't...
It is small enough to fit through that impossibly small gap...
Anything dropped in such a manner will always roll at least twice the distance you think possible...
Never drop another identical item in the same place to see where it goes; you'll just be looking for 2 of them instead...

Everyone feel free to add any additional rules from you own personal experiences.

That last rule about dropping another one to see where it goes, comes from the late 1980s, when I was in the RAF as an aircraft engineer/manager on scheduled maintenance.
One of my team had a simple job to do, refitting an Accident Data Recorder up on the spine of the aircraft. The aircraft concerned was only a few days away from completion of the maintenance and many functional checks were already completed.
Directly below where the guy was working was a vertical area, rammed with all the pipes, such as hydraulics and air systems, that needed to get from the top side to the underside of the aircraft. Things like brakes, flying controls, equipment cooling, cockpit pressurisation etc.
Having neglected to lay some cloth or paper towel directly under where he was working, just in case he dropped anything, ... he dropped a small socket and heard it bounce part way down the route to the underside.
Being a complete and utter dipstick, instead of immediately reporting his screw-up and allowing a methodical approach to finding it, using tools such as endoscopic camera equipment, he had the 'bright idea' that he'd drop another socket to see where it went
Cutting a long story short, the aircraft was several days late leaving the hangar and had several hundred additional manhours expended on it to strip out a lot of pipework to find and retrieve both sockets....before rebuilding the affected area and repeating a lot of functional tests....

[oliver90owner]

It is amazing how sometimes nuts and screws can seem to completely disappear The same solenoid was used on many many cars of the period. Do you have a garage close-by who work on old cars? Take the solenoid there and see if they can find a nut that fits. There are still old established garages around who have boxes and boxes of bits and pieces under the workbenches!

I would suggest taking the other nut from that solenoid, rather than removing the whole thing.

[jagnut66]

Cutting a long story short, the aircraft was several days late leaving the hangar and had several hundred additional manhours expended on it to strip out a lot of pipework to find and retrieve both sockets....before rebuilding the affected area and repeating a lot of functional tests....

I bet he was popular.......................

[Maurice_Minor]

I think William Shatner could do a program devoted to "Lost Nuts" in his series "Weird of What". OPENING SHOT: Shatner rides into view on his Segway, "Picture if you will, a man is working on the engine of his classic car. Suddenly a nut he is holding springs to life & leaps from his fingers to lodge itself somewhere in the engine compartment! The man sees where it fell, but is distracted for a mere second before turning back to find the nut has disappeared. Could a nut have sa pritural soul that enables it to be able to cloak itself & disappear? Are there millions of nuts around at this very moment all existing in a parallel universe. Let us explore this possibility in, "Weird or What!"

https://youtu.be/_cIlPPxmJ5w