I hope to hear from Lynn on a theory as to why this valve fell out of the engine and what the “racers solution” might be.  This must not be a common occurrence.  If it was, engines would be blowing themselves up right and left.

 

Bill B

 

This usually caused by the phone ringing.

 

 Later in life you find that no phone is needed to loose track of what you just did a minute ago. So as soon as you understand that you cannot hold a thought in your head or mine, you revert to little helpers. If you have to stop, leave the socket on the last thing you did. So if you go out back and whiz, and on your return you see the socket stuck to the plunger cover, it will remind you that it needs finished. Be sure the socket is so tall that the pan will not fit onto the engine, lest you have no oil pressure and a missing socket. It also helps me to talk out loud as though you were showing a novice how this is supposed to go together. This helps get strangers interested in whatever you are doing because they think you are talking to them. After a while they  discover that you are an idiot, with no memory at all, and walk off disgusted. I have met many like minded (you might say) folks doing this.

 

I have never seen a properly torqued cover fall off, so it must have been the phone.

 

Lynn E. Hanover