Well guys, it finally happened this weekend, I hydrolocked my engine after I always said, I’ll never hydrolock my engine, blah blah blah. Well after 30 minutes of letting the car sit, it finally started right up again. My question is guys, what could I have damaged engine wise, I know my car is burning oil up and I had to add a quart of it just the other day, Im planning to change it today. I really hope my engine is ok, my car has been blowing some smoke out here and there, is that bad? Sorry for all these questions, I just wanna make sure my baby is ok, TIA.
to my knowlege doesn’t hydrolocking an engine totally destroy it pretty much?
hm…time for enlightenment for me.
Originally posted by E-DA9
[B]to my knowlege doesn’t hydrolocking an engine totally destroy it pretty much?
hm…time for enlightenment for me.
[/B]
:werd:
luckily i have never had to investigate this matter- but I am curious
Originally posted by E-DA9
[B]to my knowlege doesn’t hydrolocking an engine totally destroy it pretty much?
hm…time for enlightenment for me.
[/B]
yes, that was my understanding as well. The cylinders fill with water in the place of air. Since liquids cannot be compressed like gases can the piston cannot move upward on its compression stroke. Piston rings, rods, bearings, crank… all sorts of parts can be destroyed. Imagine your internals moving at 3000rpms and then coming to a sudden stop…sorta like hitting a brick wall w/ your car going 80mph… its not gonna be pretty.
It is likely however that he just sucked in some water. A little could still cause damage but i think its possible for the motor to be ok. Not sure if this would be called hydrolock though. Think about the word in its direct meaning… “locked by water” meaning the cylinders are full of water thus stopping the motor from being able to move at all
i’m curious, what exactly happened. What conditions were you driving in. What is your intake setup like, and what exactly did the motor do when you “hydrolocked” it?
do a compression/leakdown test to find out
questions tho-
- how deep was the river?
- did you have the splash guards still on?
- aem or aftermarket/ghetto cai?
- how fast were you going?
- can you describe the events?
just curious… my ‘you can only hydrolock if forging a river’ attitude has been questioned after ive read of several people just getting splashed. hopefully it was something electrical…
Originally posted by XDEep
just curious… my ‘you can only hydrolock if forging a river’ attitude has been questioned after ive read of several people just getting splashed. hopefully it was something electrical…
yeah, i’m the same way. It seems to me that you’d have to drive through one hell of a big puddle and pretty slowly for you to truly hydrolock the engine. I could understand getting a little water in there, but to suck up all water wouldn’t the filter need to be completely submerged?
you can also hydrolock a motor if you blow a headgasket and run it and then let it sit for a couple hours. i know, i did it on a 1993 ford taurus once(company car with 90k miles), wasn’t mine and ford knew the problem. i asked later, they had to put a brand new motor in. it seems that if he has smoke coming out the exhaust, and it is white…well that means he blew the gasket. and when you keep driving, water and coolant get into the cylinder chambers and will lock up the motor, just as 91IntegGS explained above. but, if it started up, i doubt you did too much damage…if the car feels like it is bucking, then you have major trouble. last time i will/have driven a ford and will definitely never buy one. qaulity is job none!!!
well guys, i was following my friend, i was driving about give or take 25-30 miles an hour down this road and i had hit quite a few puddles before that and nothing happened, then, i know i didnt submerge the filter, i think water just splashed the filter and it got sucked up, i dont think it was very much water cuz when i took apart the piping, there were very few drops in there and around the piping. I am using a ebay cai on my car. the car has been running fine cept for the fact that its been eating up oil, ive been meaning to change the oil to see if that helps. for the first couple of days it was blowing white smoke but that seems to have stopped. I’m hoping the oil change will do some good. i really hope nothing major happened. well as soon as the water went into the intake, everything went to where like right before you turn the ignition to run the car, so all the lights on the gauge cluster were on and what not, just my engine shut off and so did my powersteering. and it wasnt raining heavily at the time, it was mostly just whatever small puddles were around that was most of the water in the area. help a brotha out guys so i can make sure my teggy is ok, tia
oh, that is much different than i thought. well, it could be anywhere from an electrical short to maybe some water got into the alternator or distributor. although that would seem unlikely being that they are protected. i know mercedes and a few other manufactures have a sensor(name??) near the intake manifold. this sensor will send a signal to the computer telling it to shutdown to prevent moisture getting into the cylinder chambers or preventing as much as possible. your powersteering would quit because the engine is not running, its not electric. maybe our tegs have something of this sort also. i guess if it is running normal, except the oil burning, then you are okay. have you thought about bringing it to a honda/acura dealership. they can at least take a look, you shouldn’t have to pay anything. but, it does sound like you should take care of those piston rings soon or switch to a heavier oil (i.e. 15w-30 non-synthetic).
If your vehicle were to hydrolock while running then the damage you have sustained is related to what ever you can think of. The bottom end probably has the most damage. If the engine is hydrolocked then the piston is stopped but the crank is still moving. Normally the puny stock rods bend. When this happens the piston is now closer to the crank. If there is so much water in it that the piston stope long before TDC then the rod snaps off and on the next spin ends up creating a hole in the block. If you vehicle runs then you need to have a compression/ leakdown check done.
If your compression results show evenly and leakdown is ok then you got lucky.
If your compression is off then the one with the lower compression has a bent rod. Don’t drive it because a bent rod can come apart any time. If the rod is severly bent then the it will contact the block on the side and make a knocking noise. At this point it will only be a matter of time until it comes apart. Also if the rod is bent the piston is now riding lower in the cylinder bore. The cylinder forms a ridge where the pistons rings contacts at above TDC and below BDC so if you have over 10K miles on the motor this ridge is now in the range of travel for the cylinder with the bent rod…yikes…were talking the rods will let go soon and the piston rings will damage the piston’s ring lands.
The leakdown test will confirm the damage to the rings or the pistons.
Whenever a hydrolock engine finally goes it normally breaks the rod and sends it into the block and then locks up. but if it went into the piston and ran it into the head then there could be other associated damage. Not to say you also have three other cylinders still running and making power to help further destruction…
I don’t mean to make you nervous but you need to have it checked out before you assume its ok
hey frankie, what did you end up finding out about your engine, whats the damage done?? i hope it wasn’t anything to serious, but sh!t happens. those texas floods can get the best of ya.
Try taking the first spark plug out and turn it over to shoot the water out, put it back in and do the next spark plug, so and so until u get all athe water out of the cylinders.
Hope this helps.
Matt
hey guys, well i got my car checked out at a local shop that specializes in hondas and acuras. Well the verdict that nothing was wrong with my engine, they said it runs fine and the thing they told me that i needed was some new tires and a camber kit. Well I was relieved to know my engine was ok. So now i am gonna change out my plugs and wires and go from there. Any advice guys on how to get rid of rust inside the cylinders, it came from when i would spray down the engine and and water got in there? Also I am still getting this vibration from the car when i go about 45 mph or higher, any thing i should check on? thanks again for all your help guys, i really appreciate it :).
so did you figure out what happened then?
you dont need wires unless they are faulty. you dont need to replace any ignition components unless they are. you can test all these with a voltmeter. you will gain nothing unless they were already worn, or if you have a highly built motor
well guys i have another issue at hand, when driving at higher speeds my car vibrates alot and when the a/c on, it makes it worse. The guy at the shop said i needed new tires, would bad tires be causing the car to shake alot? Or could it be that I need new motor mounts? Oh yea by the way xdeep, im just gonna do the plugs for now. tia guys.
Tires out of balance will cause your car to shake. If yours are really old, that might be the problem. You may also have had a balance weight fall off.
But beyond that there is tons of stuff that could be bad. Upper or lower ball joints, control arms, struts, etc. etc.
If you need new tires anyway, I would start with that. If you want to sanity check yourself, just rev the car in neutral and see if you feel anything abnormal from the engine. But I think the problem is probably in your suspension/tires somewhere.
Steve
Do you guys realize how hard it it to suck up water into your engine? Peep this out real quick, first off, your filter has to be completely submerged in water, then once it’s submerged, the water actually has to climb up your tube, go across the tube after it has made it that 12"-15" of tubing and into your hot engine where most of it will dissipate due to heat…
Basically saying, your intake has to be sucking up a lot like a good vaccum for that to happen…
Originally posted by 1992gs206
[B]Do you guys realize how hard it it to suck up water into your engine? Peep this out real quick, first off, your filter has to be completely submerged in water, then once it’s submerged, the water actually has to climb up your tube, go across the tube after it has made it that 12"-15" of tubing and into your hot engine where most of it will dissipate due to heat…
Basically saying, your intake has to be sucking up a lot like a good vaccum for that to happen… [/B]
i used to think the same thing, but then a lot of people started to have the same problem - that pointed to hydrolocking. so i guess its possible to suck up splashes of water, which can lead to bogging, but not total destruction… seems reasonable. i still run a cai with a fairly exposed bottom, but im gonna put like a mesh under there at least.
Every one can keep thinking its hard for the engine to suck up water but it isn’t. Just remove you r intake piping and put your hand over the throttle body while the engine is idling. Now imagine how easy it will be for the water to get in.
Joe.
Originally posted by carchitect
[B]Every one can keep thinking its hard for the engine to suck up water but it isn’t. Just remove you r intake piping and put your hand over the throttle body while the engine is idling. Now imagine how easy it will be for the water to get in.
Joe. [/B]
ya that bish sucks pretty hard