I was driving down the road on Magneto when my engine suddenly quit. I restarted, but found that I couldn't run on magneto at all. I proceeded home on battery and pulled the Magneto contact assembly. Right where the post usually makes contact was a small shiny metal fragment. I reached in to pull it out, but....I lost it and it fell inside. Now I'm afraid to run the engine. Suggestions?
If the metal was steel you might be lucky and be able to drain the oil and probe around with a magnetic probe and pull it out. Otherwise, you would need to pull the engine to find out what it is and get it out. Problem is until you recover it, you won't know what it is and it could also stick to the magnets or get into the gears and cause more damage. If you have a starter, you could pull it and see if the part came from the bendix, and look into the engine through the hole where the starter bolts to see if it is a keeper for the magnet poles.
Good luck
Norm
First thing I would do is pull the hogs head for a looksee.
Show us a photo and maybe we'll know where it came from.
Be sure to remove the starter drive, before removing the starter.
How big was the "fragment"? If it fell, it's probably stuck to a magnet on the flywheel and no amount of probing around with another magnet is going is going to produce anything. If it was a tiny piece I'd leave it alone. Anything of size, start by removing the starter and bendix then have someone slowly crank the engine while you look at the magnets on the flywheel with a good light. If you don't find it, then drain the oil into a clean pan and see if it shows up.
I hate to say it but, where there's one, there's usually more.
My Grandpa always said this and I would rather error on the side of caution and open up the case instead of guessing about what you cannot see. I now it's a lot of work. That's what I would do. Good luck Greg.
Pull the starter and bendix, mark the flywheel with something( I mark it with white paint). Have someone turn the engine by hand and see if it is on the magnets. You can also get a bore scope and look around inside and see what you can find. Be careful, what you see may scare you, magnet plates missing, ect. Dan
Greg,
About a year ago my 19 suddenly stopped running on the magneto. I switched to the battery to get it home.
When I removed the mag post I found a small piece of metal that looked like it was the leftover from a cotter pin - maybe a 1/4 inch long.
I removed it, crossed my fingers and everything has been OK since then.
I looked for a picture in a post I did but could not find it.
Fred - your cotter pin picture is in this post: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/118802/165151.html?1286839399