Valve cover replacement uh oh

New here. Just bought a 2003 4.7 Tundra. Had a small leak that looked like it was coming from back of the valve covers so I decided to change the gaskets and spark plug seals. Thought everything was going good until I realized that when I pulled the half moon cam plugs out small pieces of them broke off. I don’t recall any pieces falling in when I pulled them off but I looked for about 2 hours around my garage and in the engine bay. I found 4 out of 7 of the missing pieces. What are the chances of small pieces like that ruining the motor (if the ones I couldn’t find did fall in)? Should I drain the oil to see if any pieces come out with it? Or am I screwed?

 

That's pretty damn wild and ranks up there as potential nightmare fuel. How large are the missing pieces you failed to find, and did you try using a magnet? Are the fragments you located actually magnetic?

I doubt you'll find any fragments in the drain pain, but one of four things will happen:

• They're too large to make their way down to the pan and will just hang out
• They're obviously brittle, so if they do get stuck in something, they'll break up
• They spend the rest of their life inside the crankcase
• Nothing, because they didn't fall into the engine...

My bigger concern would be finding replacements to install, unless you already have replacements? Obviously can't re-use those.

Do yourself a favor. Get a hammer and tap on one of those slivers with a couple of light, medium, and hard blows. Does it crumble? If so, I wouldn't be happy but I wouldn't be sweating bullets either. Any blow you can lay on them, the hardened steel internals of your motor will likely mimic.

Don't make a mountain out of a molehill. This isn't ideal, but I don't personally feel it qualifies as 'engine ruiner'.

 

Yes I found replacements here locally at the dealership. The pieces I can’t find are about half the size of the ones pictured so I’m praying they’re just on the ground or engine bay somewhere and just can’t find them. I hit a piece a few times with the hammer not super hard against the concrete. it broke but it didn’t crumble.

 

Also they’re not magnetic

 

Pretty low. They are just plastic. If they get into gears, they will get chewed up. If they don't they will just sit in some corner of your engine doing nothing for the next 20 years.

 

Never would have thought those were plastic.

 

I didn’t know they made them from anything but plastic.

OP I wouldn’t worry about it. The odds that it causes a problem are super low.

 

I don’t think mine are plastic.

 

I'm pretty sure mine are alloy. But I've got an '06, so who knows if that jibes w/'03.

What it did for you with a hammer made of hardened steel is exactly what will happen to it if it gets jammed into a component that's hardened steel. The biggest legitimate risk would be it clogging a port, but it sounds like they could be small enough that it may not be an issue.

Screen your oil during the next couple OC, and see if you see something. You may also look at the old half-moons, see whether the pieces cracked off the oil-soaked side, or the side that was facing external. It may add some peace of mind to which direction they went.

 

Got ya. Thank you for the response!

 

I would agree with the above statement about possibly clogging an oil flow port. Probably not a huge problem, just not ideal. Personally, I wouldn't lose sleep over it.