I was changing out the stock bars on my husband's Terra for some nice pro taper fat bars so I had to use new clamps that bolted on thru the bigger holes. On the bottom there is a nut and large washer to be installed. I dropped the washer and can not find it. I looked in all the obvious places like the skid plate and ground, fished around with a magnet on a wire in some likely crevices, tipped bike from side to side, no washer to be found. This is driving me crazy. Any ideas? is it safe for him to ride it with a washer on the loose in some unknown location? It is a HUGE washer too, about an inch and a quarter across. At least it is not inside the engine... but still having a big loose piece of metal floating around can not be good.
Second pair of eyes will sometimes help, also you can run it a short distance up your block & sort of thrash it a bit while someone is watching to see if it falls free. Dangerous? I guess it could be but chances are no, check the brakes calipers & do a good pre-flight.
It may have bounced off of the top of the radiator landed by the cannister (right side), behind the radiator. Impossible to retrieve. I lost one there, and had to disassemble to recover. Maybe a good pair of mechanical fingers. If it did fall there, it will damage the radiator with time. Hope you find it. But the cat is out of the bag now. But such a noble gesture you are doing.
After offering my 10 year old son $5. to find the missing washer to no avail, I watched as my husband rode the bike down the drive, and it just spit the washer out! I still have no idea where it was hiding. Now all is well and I can sleep at night knowing there is not a stray washer loose in the Terra.
It's in there somewhere, but isn't it frustrating! I dropped a small Allen bit the other day while pulling the door to the air cleaner. This was on my back patio with nice clean white concrete. 'Took me three damn days to find it, and many many attempts. I didn't hear it hit the floor so thought it was in the bike. Then I thought it might have fallen into a control joint in the slab. Out came the magnet. Nope. Finally I stumbled across it laying right on the slab, in front of God and everybody. Just don't give up, come back to it over and over, and it will turn up. It's just playing a game with you!
Glad you found it and I like the idea of a little ride while someone is watching for it to spit out. If you suspect you lost something on the ground, here is an odd piece of advise that I learned from working in the field on the dirt for so many years. If you have another washer, put it on the ground, stand back and look at it in a few different directions. It will train your eyes to notice the exact object you are looking for in the same light conditions. Very strange I know, but it has worked for me a few times in the past.
I have had success searching for lost washers and such on a large concrete area by waiting until dark and then searching with a torch (or a flashlight). What can be invisible in daylight can stand out under direct light at night. A while back I lost a washer from one bike on a concrete driveway and looked for it for quite some time. I found it about 2 weeks later. Saw it out of the corner of my eye when I wasn't even looking for it, right in the area where I had been looking.
Every time I can't find a part that I think is on the bike/car i'm working with, I find it under a chair or toolbox a year later... :\
I find the best way to find a part, especially an expensive part, that I drop, is to buy a new one, within 2 days of installing the new one, the original usually turns up. That's how I ended up with my boxes of spares.
Just last week I was horrified to see the metering rod from the Amal carb I had apart laying on the floor where I had been working because I knew the clip must be there too. I crawled around on the floor CSI style with a flash light after moving the MC lift and thought I'd covered every square inch quite well. No Dice. So I swept the floor and was surprised to find it in the dust pan.
