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water ingestion

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Pastry

New member
curse scotland for poorly drained roads;

i had no alternative to drive through a large puddle (pool? lake?) on the way home.

cue spluttering, and cut out. thankfully restarted creating clouds of steam, chugged a bit then seemed to clear up.

gonna take apart the airbox and put a new air filter in, but anything else i need to do? its restarted and runs fine so hopefully i got away with it.
 
I would be doing a wee compression test to check for bent valves. You can also bend con rods as well doing this if it hydraulics as well as splitting liners!
Alasdair
 
I'd guess you got away with it.
It died not because of water ingestion but due to water splashing around the electrics, water ingestion is total and final.
Mike
 
What you said should suffice. Same thing happened to me in my lovely BMW 330ci. Ther result was a bunch of bent valves and a cat D write off!!! You got off luck fella.
 
This was a bigger problem with series one car, which sucked air straight out of the near side wheel arch. Ive seen a number of cars that have suffered and theyve all been terminal: a couple have had the cylinderhead lifter from the block! Thats why you NEVER remove the wheelarch liner.....
 
Pastry,
I thought I'd destroyed mine last year doing exactly the same! The air filter you could wring out and the dipstick was white!
Oil change and flush and a new air filter and all was well. I forget what the compression test said but my indie was happy enough for a 220K engine. Certainly a year on and it goes like a train still. I'd already started looking at the classifieds as it would certainly have written the whole car off. Glad it didn't.
 
This was a bigger problem with series one car, which sucked air straight out of the near side wheel arch.
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A classic case of failing to convert to RHD properly, let's take the air out of the puddles, rather than the crown of the road, in heavy rain. [&o]

I was told that drilling a great big hole higher up the air intake would lessen the risk. Might not work, but can't do any harm either.
 
I honestly dont know about that Paul. I fitted a series two liner to my hillclimber and I sold a lot of liners to other early owners too.
 
thanks for the info everyone. little bit of mayo on the dipstick and a puddle in the airbox so its defiitely ingested some water. Hopefully not enough to bend anything but im booking it in to get it checked over. it ran at normal temp and pressure last night so fingers crossed.

will certainly never do that again. [:mad:]
 
Chances are you'll be ok - ingestion proper would stop you dead and you wouldn't be going anywhere under your own steam.

I wondered if induction kits might be advantageous in these situations as the air intake is then at bonnet height not further down. Anyone?
 
I did this last year. Also in Scotland (deepest, darkest Ayrshire). I had it worse than you, but luckily not bad enough to actually flood the cylinders.

Mine stopped dead and couldn't be restarted. Had to tow it to Motortune.

New air filter, new air flow meter, new starter motor, new spark plugs and a thorough empty and clean out of the system had me on the road again in a couple of days.

I'm being so careful about not driving through standing water this year!
 
I'd you'd done anything bad you'd know by now. I'd definately get your oil changed though. That could do damage if left. My car got loads of water in the cylinders when the head gasket was leaking slightly. Took me over a week to work out that it was blowing more white smoke than it should when it'd been sitting and then started but it didn't bend anything :) tough old buggers these cars. Think it comes from its V8 origans. Big and simple is tough.
 
ORIGINAL: sc0tty

How can some water damage the cylinder head??
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Air in the cylinders is compressed when the piston comes up to give pressure needed for the explosion so more air must be drawn into the chamber than fits the space left when the piston is highest.. water doesn't compress the same way so when the valves close ready for the bang if there's more water than space the piston stops HARD and things under it bend/break or the head gets blown off!
 

ORIGINAL: sc0tty

How can some water damage the cylinder head??
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It is the basic principle of operation of everything hydraulic. Gasses will compress whereas liquids are uncompressable. Hence the term 'hydraulicing' your engine. A fancier term for it would be hydrostatic lock.
 
A classic sign of a bust head gasket on a turbo is a starter motor that breaks when you star the engine. What happens is that water leaks and fills the cylinder with water when the engine is turned off. You come to start the engine and as the motor applies torque to an engine that wont turn a shear neck feature in the starter motor shaft that is designed to shear before you start bending con rods does its job, breaks the starter motor but saves the engine. The key is to realise why your starter motor has just bust. A mate at work had this happen, assumed it was just his starter motor, replaced his starter motor and the same thing happen. So he wasted a perfectly good starter motor before realising what had happened.
 

ORIGINAL: DavidL

Chances are you'll be ok - ingestion proper would stop you dead and you wouldn't be going anywhere under your own steam.

I wondered if induction kits might be advantageous in these situations as the air intake is then at bonnet height not further down. Anyone?
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Undoing the snorkel (2 screws) before entering water might be prudent (on a turbo anyway, cant remember how the NA intake runs)
Tony
 
ORIGINAL: 944Turbo


ORIGINAL: DavidL

Chances are you'll be ok - ingestion proper would stop you dead and you wouldn't be going anywhere under your own steam.

I wondered if induction kits might be advantageous in these situations as the air intake is then at bonnet height not further down. Anyone?
Click to expand...

Undoing the snorkel (2 screws) before entering water might be prudent (on a turbo anyway, cant remember how the NA intake runs)
Tony
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I just avoid water now. Got a Range Rover classic on my radar for this type of weather out here in the sticks!
 
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