Installing Detent Spring and Balls

OK, so I have demonstrated the effectiveness of echo-location for finding the spring and one of the balls in the hydraulic control valve plunger.  I had rigged up a shroud over the space where I was removing the detent plug, but there was a gap and the ball and spring shot across the shop.  Luckily, I head the ball strike the wall about 14’ away and it landed on a floor mat in plain sight.  Backtracking from that site moving toward the workbench led to the spring.  It was probably a one-in-a-million coincidence to find both pieces.

Now I need to put it back together.  How do I hold the spring and both detent balls in place while sliding the detent plug back over the plunger?  I don’t want to push my luck at finding those pieces again.  Can anyone tell me how you do it?

Jay, it probably fell down in something. I was cleaning up a while back, and found a 5/8" deepwell socket inside a cofee can full of B-112 bolts. Aforementioned socket must have landed there after it bounced off the wall. This was preempted by the ratchet slipping off of the steering stabilizer bolt on my wife's Jeep and taking about 1/2 pound of knuckle meat as payment for my carelessness. You can imagine how the socket got separated from the ratchet. I reference Charlie Tuckers definition of "dammit tool". LOL!

Bob, I would like some ideas too as I am going to be tearing into the one on my C (not pumping at all) and the one on the WD-45 (loader goes up great till 4 feet off the ground and then REAL slow with nothing in it. Won't move if at all if anything in it).  So I have to rebuild them both.  I should post this on a new one... Hmmm

echo-location, been there done that. LOL

Roger Welsch had a very descriptive account of this happening to him on a WC

About a year ago while mounting a scope on my rifle I lost one of the four screws used to fasten the scope to its mount.  This happened in my basement workshop and I did a thorough search many times for that screw. I knew that I could not find one locally because it is a very special screw with a countersink head and then Allen wrench drive.  I searched around, inside, and under every thing in the workspace many times looking for that lost screw. Much cursing and anguish later I contacted customer support at Leupold for a replacement screw.  Three days later I received two replacement screws at no charge. Two days ago I walked into the workshop and laying there in the middle of the concrete floor was that lost screw. I will never know where that screw lay hidden for almost one year and then suddenly appeared.

Gil (cent MO) wrote: About a year ago while mounting a scope on my rifle I lost one of the four screws used to fasten the scope to its mount.  This happened in my basement workshop and I did a thorough search many times for that screw. I knew that I could not find one locally because it is a very special screw with a countersink head and then Allen wrench drive.  I searched around, inside, and under every thing in the workspace many times looking for that lost screw. Much cursing and anguish later I contacted customer support at Leupold for a replacement screw.  Three days later I received two replacement screws at no charge. Two days ago I walked into the workshop and laying there in the middle of the concrete floor was that lost screw. I will never know where that screw lay hidden for almost one year and then suddenly appeared.