get a magnet and glue it to the end of a long wooden dowel and hopefully you can get to it. If not you are pulling the pan off.
Can you see it? You might can try to fish it with a magnet. A buddy of mine dropped the front nut for the intake manifold down there. He used a magnet to find it through the front oil drain plug. It was too big to get out, so he used another magnet to hold it in place. To the best of my knowledge, he is still riding around that way after 5 or 6 years.
Joe
One more thing. Something I'm sure you're completely aware of now (after the fact). Remove distributor bolt, SET ASIDE, then remove distributor, shove a clean rag in the hole to cover it up which will help keep foreign material from falling inside engine. This can be applied to just about anything on the engine like when you remove the upper intake, you should put tape (2" masking tape) over the intake holes.
Best of luck removing that bolt.
if you started the car, it would have come out eventually ya know.. Glad you got it out.
Thanks. It was not fun but in the process I got the timing done correctly and found out my throttle sensor wasn't working properly so I'm gonna test it later and it should have a little more get up. the gt40 intake i put on isn't going to do much if anything, until I get a throttle body tho I'm sure.
You'll notice a difference in the upper rpms . I had one on my stock headed motor years ago . The heads are still the choke point though .
Hate to sound simplistic, are your wheels balanced?