1997 Civic HX All Stock D16Y5 MT 310k miles.

Please help, I am so stupid. I dropped a piece of rubber down the front left oil passage when I had the valve cover off. I can't see it when I look down the passage. How screwed am I ? Will the engine need to be rebuilt to get it out ? What exactly is the routing of the oil passages ?

Background :
I was putting on a new valve cover gasket on my beloved Civic. I had the cover on with the new gasket (plugs and perimeter gasket). I couldn't get the rubber seals that go on the outside of the cover on the cover fastener bolts. I decided in my infinite wisdom to put the fasteners on their holes then tap them through their outer rubber seals with a rubber mallet. Unfortunately I realized after doing four of the 5 and inspecting one of them by taking it out that the "tip" of the rubber seal had come off when I hammered the fastener bolts through. I took off the cover and was able to find three of the four. Unfortunately when I went to go pick up one of the three pieces it slipped through my fingers and went down an oil passage.

I put things away for the night, where exactly does this passage go to (directly through to the pan ?). How narrow are said passages ? If it is stuck and too narrow to go straight down to the pan what will happen ? What should I do ?



Are of the oil passage that the rubber tip fell in.

Rubber tip similar to that I broke off a new seal that fell down the passageway.

 

straight shot to the oil pan.

If you can't see it in the tube to fish back out then you'll want to drop the oil pan to find it.

you'll need: new oil, a pan gasket and some RTV (ultra grey). if the exhaust is a crusty as that heat shield you may also want some good penetrating oil and spare hardware. the rest is just normal hand tools.

drain old oil, remove lower exhaust pipe, remove bell housing/block brace and probably the dust cover over the flywheel. then all the pan bolts/nuts.

 

Thanks for the info.

What I want to make sure I understand is how "straight" the route of the oil passage is to the oil pan. I fear the rubber piece may be lodged in the passage - right from the top it takes a "turn" downwards and can't see it. How many more significant turns does it take ?

I am familiar with accessing the oil pan to take it off/replace. I do have a question about putting on the HondaBond per the FSM. The FSM states 1) Put a bead of the Honda bond on the mating surfaces. AND 2) Put Hondabond ONLY on two shaded areas on the gasket.
So which is it ? A complete perimeter bead or only on the designated areas ? I cant post a picture of the FSM page I am referring to but I hope I gave enough into to convey my confusion.

​​​​​​​Any help is appreciated.

 

OK I had the time to deal with this two days ago. Everything was as you said, straight shot down to the pan. Found the pieces, cleaned the pan up pretty well except there was quite a bit of RTV in the actual gasket channel that was hard to get out so I poured some acetone in the channel this morning and am going to let it sit until after work later today. Hopefully all the remaining gasket maker stuff will be dissolved or easier to remove.