Help? Plastic fell into engine?

Ok, so I am doing the valve cover gasket on the Z3 and it looks like a piece of the valve cover has fallen into the engine.

Its a piece about 1 inch long by 1/4 inch wide by 1/16 thick.

I can't find it anywhere, and I have been looking with dental instruments.

I also tried to blow it out with air hoping it would show up, no luck there either.

So now I am worried that I have a plastic bit bouncing around inside the engine.

What do you think? How much trouble is this going to be?

Here is a pic of where the missing piece came from.

Are you sure you knocked it off? That valve cover has probably been off before. maybe more than once. Perhaps some one knocked that piece of plastic off on a previous go around. By the by. Thanks again for the heater fix. I really appreciate it. Miller 1000

I have no idea. Randy said not to worry about it, so I am not.

Originally Posted by Miller 1000

Are you sure you knocked it off? That valve cover has probably been off before. maybe more than once. Perhaps some one knocked that piece of plastic off on a previous go around. By the by. Thanks again for the heater fix. I really appreciate it. Miller 1000

Any time. I love the small projects.

Its harder to screw those up!

Same thing happened to me during valve cover replacement on my old Z. ** Frantic *** I drove it another 30k with no problems.

Yeah, I was a little upset, but the consensus is that if it gets into the gears, they will just chew it up. If not, then it will fall down into the pan to live the rest of its life.

Worst case would be if it got completely ground up and clogged the oil intake screen, but I am not too worried about that. Its a relatively small piece of plastic, and I have an oil pressure gauge that I will be watching.

I will be changing the oil a little early though just in case.

I change it ever 3k miles with Mobil 1 0w40 as it is, so I should be OK.