I had one that destroyed one of the oil sprayers, crunched it into little pieces with the crank, those pieces and the bolt were in the crankcase for a while and never made it through the oil pump screen.

You'd have to block a substantial amount of the oil pump screen to create enough suction to damage it, it's about a 1-1/2"DIA screen IIRC, with about 14AWG steel wire. Not window screen.

I really don't understand the concept of wasting time trying to fish out a key when it will do no harm there. It'll be under the windage tray, can't get to anything. If it bothers you, put in a magnetic drain plug and you'll see it soon.

I have to believe that the only way you'd not know that it is of no concern, is that you've never had the oil pan off of an engine (at least not a 603.97x).

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Gone to the dark side

- Jeff