My sister was driving her 84 SE to work, and her main oil lines (which were rigged together by the guy she bought it from apparently) came apart, and the car died.... My father went to give her another car to get to work, and also he said he tried to turn the engine by hand and it will not budge.... I think its siezed, and pretty much screwed? Any other tests that would prove of disprove this theory?

 

These engines don't usually end up siezed, excluding carbon lock which only usually happens if the car sits a long while...

It really depends on how long she drove the engine with the bad oil line.. You are probably talking about the oil line to the cooler, I have had mine blow out twice and both times you know it long before your oil is drained due to the amount of smoke.. We are talking a HUGE cloud which would immediately make you want to stop the car... So when your dad checked it was there any oil in the engine? If there was some still left on the dip stick you are probably fine if not i'd say its a 50/50 chance. If it ran without oil it could have blown an apex seal which then may have gotten jammed in one of the rotors making it so you wouldn't be able to crank it by hand.

I would recommend you put some more oil in it and try the ATF trick and then see if you can turn it over. If it turns over and smokes for a long time (it will smoke for a while after you put ATF in it) then you probably lost an apex seal.. Also if you lost an apex seal the car will run like complete **** and you won't have any compression.

Thats about all you can do.. that and maybe say a prayer.

 

remove the oil filter and look to see if there is bearing debris . and if so engine is tost.

 

I think he meant the oil hose blew apart while driving, and then as she was driving, the engine died... therefore, there'd be no oil in the engine...

If you can't crank it over by hand, or with a socket on the front pulley, the engine is seized....

I think some people forget that there ARE main bearings on the eccentric shaft, just like in a *Gasp* PISTON engine. If these bearings are not receiving oil, they cannot prevent metal-on-metal contact between the two bearing surfaces, because the bearings rely on full film oil lubrication. Full-film lubrication means the shaft bearings are actually centered by and floating in a layer of oil....

If metal on metal contact occurs between two bearings at even 1000 rpm for prolonged periods of time, metal will be transferred from one part to the other, almost as if welded together... seizing the shaft.....



In other words:

if the engine ran out of oil and seized, it's fuckered


*Edited for readability*

 

"now me and the mad scientist over here are gonna have to tear apart the block and replace the ......blah blah blah" It's probaBLY TOTALLY TOASTED!. Why don't women ever check the temp guadge or the oil pressure guadge? (no offense to women who actually can drive and know anything) My wife toasted my 91 300zx. almost divorced her.....j/k.. but i wanted to.

 

yeah, those are the best two guages you can ever have on a car, but you have to actually LOOK at them for them to help at all

 

Speaking of which, my oil pressure gauge seems to have crapped out the last time I drove my 85 (last night).

All the other gauges still work fine... any ideas where I should start to assess the problem?

 

Typically its the sending unit.. disconnect the wire that goes to it and run the car.. if theres no change then it is the oil pressure sending unit. Sometimes cleaning the contact points helps.. usually the unit needs replacement.

 

I feel the engine deadness *runs and hides*
The only time I've ever known a rotary to "lock up" is with carbon build up.. I think there was one in the garage like that but we fixed it with atf

Sorry to hear about the car! But I must agree with the guys.. was she not checking her gauges??????????