To make a short story long, the rule one should always follow in a situation like this is " The chance of your finding it decreases with the amount of effort you spend looking for it and the importance of the part Furthermore the part will always turn up in the most obvious location you can't think of "
Sunday as I was putting my exhaust and axles back in, I stretched one of four new donuts like a rubber band to clear the hangers with a giant pry bar, and it suddenly flew off into nowhere and vaporized.
Not that it mattered, i could have reused my old ones, but for a compulsive individual like me, it drove me nuts and I ransacked the my driveway for 3 hours looking for it.
What followed belies the fact that I have a brain. I shook my car front and back, jumped on the bumpers, convinced that the donut was lodged in some ledge of the suspension or undercarraige. That must have amused the neighbors! Then I got into everyone of my other three cars and backed them of the driveway and proceeded to walk down the driveway in matrix like fashion convinced that math would yield the Donut. No luck. At 6 PM my wife called me in for dinner.
That was the end of the search.
The next morning as I left for work I absent mindedly gazed at my christmas lights and saw the donut hanging tantalizingly on one of them in a bush next to the driveway and the car I was working on.
I've been through this scenario 1000 times. Once I ransacked my house and garage and the laundry looking for 2 days looking my Car Keys. Where did they turn up? In my engine compartment where I left them as I got out one afternoon to tweak some obscure setting.
Another time I lost a valuable corner seal on an RX7 engine I was rebuilding. I searched for it for vain for three hours all over the garage floorand found it stuck to the adhesive of the envelope for the other seals.
Finally there are the wrenches or obscure tools that pronounce their absence by missing slots on ratchet wracks or socket bars...I swear I never know where they go, but somehow they always turn up after long searches and I pride myself on still having every socket I bought with my first Craftsmen tool set in 1981...........

Been there, done that. I also have my Craftsman tool set intact until I start to use it. Then, mysteriously, the critical socket I had in my hand not more than 2 mins ago disappears only to reappear after I struggle with a less convenient alternative, skin some part of me and get the job done.

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01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

My most commonly used 13mm sockets and allens reside in a black hole located somewhere in the engine compartment.

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82 300D....went to MB heaven
90 350 SDL....excercising con rods

I know I have a good craftsman socket in the black hole in the square collumn where the doors dolt on with my truck...there is one nut accessed through a hole with the dash off....well socket snagged adn dropped....no way to fish it out.... at least it dosn't roll around and rattle.

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Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
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Section 609 MVAC Certified
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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

I found a 10mm gear wrench in my engine compartment that I thought was gone forever. W123s like to hide tools in the hinge channels.

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Adam Lumsden
(83) 300D
Vice-President of the MBCA International Stars Section

Drivers side hinge drain = dropped fuse repository

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Rob M
Norwich, VT USA
1980 240D Euro delivery 4 speed manual silver/blue
~160K miles