Okay so attempted to do a valve clearance and whilst putting back the middle inlet shim on cly 2 the shim dropped.

Ive pulled away the cam shaft and still cant find it i think its dropped down where the larger cam is.

I ve stuck a magnet down there to find nothing.

WHAT DO I DO NOW?

Remove the sump and the pour some oil down the cavity that the shim fell and hope that it comes out the bottom. If not then you can end up in a lot of trouble.

Too late now but always stuff all the top end holes and spaces with old rags and have a magnet on a stick handy.

Only recently did I try to save a few minutes by skipping this step. One of the shims dropped and went down into the sump, got caught in the gearbox and locked the engine when i was trying to turn it over by hand (thankfully by hand)

Removed the sump and eventually got it out.

Big pain in the arse job having to buy new gaskets et al just for the sake of using soem rag.

Make sure you find it though. They are quite hard and can easilly jam up the gearbox.

So if i take of the sump at the bottem i need to
1. drain the oil
2 remove the 12 bolts holding the sump
3. find the shim hopefully
4. replace the gasket on the sump and the front exhaust headers (is this necessaries?)
5. reinstall the sump and oil

What happens if the shim isn't in the sump? Should i just manually turn the engine until it falls out or are there other places it could have gone?

Thanks for you help guys

You forgot:
1.5. Remove front headers.

You won't get the sump to clear the pickup with the exhaust still in the way.

yep i did haha dont know why i would have replaced the gasket for the exhaust headers if i didnt remove the exhaust.

Do i need to replace all those seals and what to do if i dont find the shim =[

Make sure it hasn't bounced and ended up on the floor... If you don't find it and decide to run the engine anyway, you'll almost certainly regret it, and it may not just be your wallet that gets injured! if it's not in the sump, it probably is best to turn the engine over by hand as it may be in a position where it will only come out if disturbed. Good luck!

i retrieve mine not by takig off the sump but by removing the clutc cover and going in through the side.

Magnet on a stick. job done.

I'll probably search around my work area again tonight.

If no luck how do I take the gear that drives the cams out? Is it the 4 nuts around it.

If that doesn't work I'll probably take the sump out of the right side engine casing.

Yes. Those 4 bolts come out. Also there is a bolt on the intake side of the block that also secures the cam gears in place.