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I guess this all depends on how lucky a fella is... All the way to oil pan? lucky! Can see it, Lucky! Otherwise... ah crap.

I went and bought from ALDI an inspection camera. IT has a long flexible gooseneck with a small camera and light on the end, the images are shown on the main body of the camnera. Unfortunately even with this high tech stuff I could not see the rubber plug, all I know is its stuck somewhere cos is preventing the crankshaft turning.

Looks like I will have to drop the sump and and a look upwards.

Otherwise, then off with the head and go the bog bore route?. My compression figures were 110 - to 120 and 60 on no 6, that is with a cold engine but a good strong engine would be around 150?

If it fell down the cam chain tunnel, and you can't turn the engine over, then it must be wedged between the cam chain and gear or in the timing chain. Can you turn the engine backwards at all?

Just remove a camshaft to allow the chain to drop at the crank and the rubber should drop below into the sump.

Remove sump and you should find it or be able to coax it down to there..............its also a good chance to then remove your oil pick up pipe and check the gauze filter for debri..........a job well worth doing.

Pete F
UK

,......well after a long break and with warmer weather now here I got round to my z1300 dropped the sump and lo and behold the half moon shaped rubber grommet was sitting there in the pan still in shape and is now back in the cylinder head

Unfortunately my engine still does not crank over, it is stuck if I back it off at the alternator bolt, then turn it clockwise, after a short turn it becomes stuck - maybe I have a bent valve?

I had before removed the cam chain tensioner when looking for the rubber grommet and might have upset the timing trying to crank the engine over.

So now is off with the cams to check if the timing chain rotates freely and is it does then it has to be a bent valve or two

It's possible that you've upset the cam timing when the tensioner was off and if you haven't reefed the engine over you might get lucky and just bumped a piston up into a valve and not bent it. I would get the camshafts retimed and then do a compression test or if you have the equipment I prefer a leakdown test and determine the condition of the valves before pulling the head. If you don't have a compression tester nor a leakdown tester, do yourself a favor and buy the leakdown tester. It's a much more definitive tool than the dinosaur compression tester.