sucked in water

hi all, i sucked water into my 300tdi disco earlier today (dont ask!) Basically, after alot of panicing i decided to disconnect the injecter pipes remove the injecters and crank her over (to be honest, just to put my mind at rest that she was completly buggered) and to my delight (and surprise ) water came spewing out of all of the holes the injecters sit in!
I am goin to dry her out 2nite and try again in the morning just wondered if anyone had any advice as to what to watch out for or if there is something better to do etc any help would be great
cheers!

No that usually dose the trick. good luck.

Time for a snorkel???????????????????

ha ha definatly! its just the excuse i have been waiting for!!

ive never been sucked in water.

You've never lived.

Hows the Disco? Did it start?

ummm kind of! she'll turn over fine (altough the battery is dead) but doesnt want to fire @ the mo, and goin 2 charge battery a litte then try again. if it doesnt start then, i was thinking could it be the head gasket?

loosen your injector pipes (at the injector end) and turn it over until diesel comes out of each one this will get rid of any air pretty quickly.

tighten them up and try again.

TAKE CARE!

There could be quite a bit of water still lying in the "bowls" in the piston tops, and the compression will be WAY too much, and the water will prevent ignition.

Fine a source of compressed-air, and one of the dirt-blasting pistol air line things with a long thin nozzle.

Put on safety goggles ... please ...

Get a piston to top dead centre, #1 and #4 will come to the top together, and guess what? One full turn of the crank will bring #2 and #3 up.

Insert the air lance and BLOW! If there is water in there you will see the spray come back at you.

TWO cylinders (the ones that were on compression, not on full exhaust) will blow clear, but the other two may leave a little wet in the inlet manifold.

Given a decent session of this treatment, the water should clear.

Now, IF (and it's quite a big IF) you haven't bent all the conrods, the engine should start assuming all the rest is OK, like bleeding up to the injectors. If it starts but is very rough and smoky, klet it run a while on tickover, and pray it clears. If it doesn't clear, suspect a bad firing cylinder due to low compression by virtue of a bent conrod.

I meant to point out that removing both injectors and glow-plugs makes air-blowing almost guaranteed to clear water completely.

CharlesY

just an update, thanks for your advice so far, the engine now fires ok, just with alot of white exhaust, i am now goin to run it on tickover for a while (with fingers firmly crossed!) and hope that it clears

CharlesY said:

TAKE CARE!

Now, IF (and it's quite a big IF) you haven't bent all the conrods, the engine should start assuming all the rest is OK, like bleeding up to the injectors. If it starts but is very rough and smoky, klet it run a while on tickover, and pray it clears. If it doesn't clear, suspect a bad firing cylinder due to low compression by virtue of a bent conrod.

Click to expand...

Could this also be caused by anything else like the head gasket?

Could this also be caused by anything else like the head gasket?[/quote]

Yes, and that COULD have been damaged (blown) by gross over-pressures due to sucking water into a cylinder.

You need to determine which kind of white smoke it is!

There's STEAM white smoke, and there is diesel fuel unburnt vapour white smoke.

IF it is from sucked-in water steam , it will clear quite quickly, and the engine should run on all cylinders as normal UNLESS you have bent a conrod or cracked a piston or crushed the piston-ring lands, and left one (or more!) cylinder low on compression.

If it is steam from a blown head gasket it will not clear, and you will probably experience over-pressurisation of the cooling system - gas bubbling into the header-tank.

Unburnt fuel white smoke has a pungent nasty smell. It does not disappear in the air like steam does, and should not be mistaken for steam.

This smoke is due to not quite enough heat in a cylinder to ignite the fuel-spray. Suspect low compression, slow starter motor, too cold, duff glow plugs, and so on.

Let us know if the white smoke cleared!

CharlesY

Could this also be caused by anything else like the head gasket?

Yes, and a worst case situation could be a cracked head casting.

This would be a possible cause of a persistent white smoke situation that resists all attempts at a fix.

Cracked heads are not easy to detect at DIY level. Pressure testing is the way to do it, but that's quite a big deal involving the head off the block and a specialist with the testing rig.

Fingers crossed it was just a bit of water left in the piston-tops!

CharlesY

had her running for a little while now and the smoke hasnt seemed to clear, does smell like unburnt fuel aswell . the engine aslo seems to shake a bit at idle. a mate also suggested that it could be the timing? aparently he had a very similar prob with a citroen and it was because the belt had slipped? any thoughts on that?

You can forget about a timing problem in a TD5, because (a) it hasn't got an injection pump, and (b) it doesn't have a timing belt!

My suggestion now that it is running is to take it for a test drive. Get it up to full TEMP on the gauge, and set off, driving normally, and see if you can work out if it is pulling as well as it used to, or if it feels short of "go", when hitting a gradient or accelerating.

A problem with 5 cylinder engines is working out if in fact only 4 cylinders are working. It isn't easy to tell, but the vibrating engine and persistent smoke suggests all is still not as it should be.



HOWEVER .... you could still be lucky, and it might yet clear if you go for a five or ten mile drive.

There may be pints or even gallons of water soaked into the exhaust system, the silencers, and that could make steam and smells until a good run boils it all away again.

Go for it ... and let us know.

CharlesY

I should have pointed this out at the beginning ..... you did drain the water out of the intercooler didn't you .... ? Right ?

Like, you undid the hose-clips and pulled the hoses off at all the low points to drop any water out ... ?

If not, the water will work it's way through the system and clear, but you'll see a bit of steam till it is all cleared.

CharlesY

have taken off the intercooler and a little water came out, only a small dribble, thouroghly drying that one out at the mo. i had tried to clear it but the bottom pipe points upwards a bit so i thought i may aswell takeit out, just to be sure! wondering now whether it way also be a damaged injecter? any ideas??

commercialmatt said:

have taken off the intercooler and a little water came out, only a small dribble, thouroghly drying that one out at the mo. i had tried to clear it but the bottom pipe points upwards a bit so i thought i may aswell takeit out, just to be sure! wondering now whether it way also be a damaged injecter? any ideas??

Click to expand...

I think you need to keep calm, be patient, and hope for the best!
Put it all back together again, get it running, and let it tick-over till it is up to normal temp on the gauge. Pick up your phone (in case the car breaks down and you need a tow) and go for a drive. If the whole innards of the exhaust system were soaked, it could take a while to heat up and dry out.

You could get lucky .... I take it there isn't water in the fuel tank?
To be sure, open the drain tap on the bottom of the filter (rear right wheel -arch) and catch the spillage in a glass jar. Let it settle and check for separation - if it does that means WATER, and a new filter would be a good plan once that water is out of the system.

Good Luck!

thanks for all your help so far! another update! things werent right so i took the head off last nite to have a look. on first inspection the rear two cylinders seemed to be a little dirty (altough as far as i can see no cracks in any of them) and on looking at the cylinder head there appears to be oil coming out of the rear two cylinders aswell, am thinking its prob the piston rings? any ideas? the smoke wasnt very white before i took it off either it was darker (like it was oil) any tips or advice?