1200 miles from home and stuck!
 

:( Ok, been a rough week, so please don't flame on me, thanx.....

I just completed my 1200 mile drive to California (San Dimas) from Montana, and 3 days ago, the engine seemed to seize up in my 91 S5 N/A.... It had been running apparently fine, and after filling paperwork out for UTI, I got back to my APT, and changed, went out to take off, and Nothing.... I could hear the Starter engage, but nothing after that.... I took the starter out, and checked it over, and it seemed fine... I took all the belts off, the fan and such, and put a wrench on the nut on the balancer pulley and tried to move it, and nothing... the motor has 90k miles on it, the first 77000 were driven under heavy care from a little scared fellow.... anything you guys might think caused this, or anything I can try to get that thing moving again, would be hugely appreciated... or maybe I should ride a bike for a while and do a engine swap and go turbo..... but I would like to get the 7 running again asap....

thank you.

Can you manually crank the engine over by hand via crankshaft bolt and 19mm?

B

I tried, and avas, no luck.... unless I'm not pulling the wrench hard enough....

It won't be *easy* to turn (as in flick wrist and spin), but it should turn over with not a huge amount of effort.

What happens if you try to turn the engine backwards?

-=Russ=-

Not to sound like a smartass, but what's the oil level at?

well, the engine, is perma-locked, will not turn in either direction... I put a lot of torque on it, and no luck.... can you say ummmm ahhhh hell? any idears? turbo motor, rebuilt and ported? whacha think?

ported turbo motor

did, I mention that I need a semi-cost effective deal too...? 1200 miles and starting school chewed up my pocket book....

2 possibilities:

1)rolled apex seal. solution: jspec motor, or rebuild and new rotor/housing.
2) carbon locked. not likely, but if so, the solution is to fill the engine with Amsoil PowerFoam. or some other carbon solvent and let sit till it frees up.

pat

what is your oil level at?
do you remember there being Oil pressure when you were last driving it, is there oil on the ground under the car?
you might have starved the car of oil

also inspect the oil metering pump lines for leakage, and if the first 77,000 miles were driven like a baby then maybe the engine built up a lot of carbon.

oil is good, no sign of gunk in the oil, pressure was 50+ prior under acceloration... no oil on the ground at all, no visable leakage, no major issue's beforehand, the only troubles, secondary injectors have been clogged, and the 5th anf 6th ports don't come online consistantly....

sounds like a spun bearing, a rolled apex seal you would be able to break it free (not to any good avail but free non the less).

Get a good used engine, like a jspec. Your in the right state to find those easy.

^^ wrong. rolled apex seals are very hard to break free, especially if you pull on it the wrong way first. same deal with carbon.

also, the bearings that are used in the 13b are soft, and will almost never freeze, but will eat themselves up and develop excessive play instead. this ruins all kinds of shit, but it doesnt cause the engine to lock up.

pat

stick? or auto? it was in nuetral right?

hey - i go to UTI
did you drive a red fc?
if so i think i saw you the other day.

i've got the white fc TII thats usually parked towards the front door, all the way in the back.

*bump*

rebuilt ported turbo motor.

If I was you, a college student needing a car, I'd start with trying to un-carbon lock the engine.

Search on it for ungodly amounts of information.

You could also do this, if you want to try something before pulling your intake apart and dumping chemicals in... go to Kragen and buy the big 200A battery charger/booster stand. It can put out 200A off a normal plug into your battery.

That 200A will give your starter the power of the GODS if it's good. (lol) And you can return it after using it once... or keep it... it's a great battery charger and awesome to have around, no need to boost off another car or wait around for a charge as long as you have a good alternator.

If that can't turn it over, something is definately stuck hard.

After a long ass haul like that, the heat really soaks into all the parts and things expand more than usual... so the carbon locking is pretty possible... apex seal falling out sounds unlikely for an S5 with that many miles... unless the OMP has failed and you're running dry.

So if I was you... I'd probably do the carbon lock thing AND the 200A kick right afterwards... just because it's easy for me to pull apart my intake. If you know how to do that easily, go for it.

WARNING though. I've heard RUMORS that it is BAD to try to force a carbon locked motor to start... the carbon can dislodge the apex seal it's catching on. I PHYSICALLY cannot see how this could happen. The carbon would have to be SO UNBELIEVABLE. Kevin, http://www.rotaryresurrection.com/, says on his site that he's only ever seen ONE _TRULY_ carbon locked engine... and if I remember right, it was his own FD's engine. For a guy that pulls apart people's engines all the time, carbon lock seems like more of a myth than a common occurance.

This doesn't mean I don't think that the engine can sort of seize up... but I just don't think it can be blamed on carbon... more on expanding and contracting of the individual pieces in the engine... and a bad combination of them doing it. In which case you'll be needing to pull the engine apart anyway... so taking the risk of tossing the locked piece by giving it a strong kick isn't all that bad.

Just my ramblings on it.

--Gary

unfortunately, i dont think its carbon locked.

have we verified that the car was not in gear during the attempted handcranking?

Yeah, carbon lock doesnt really happen much at all...I've seen more engines with all 6 apex seals blown at one time (2) than I have truly carbon locked engines (1). Carbon lock is pretty much a myth...especially under these conditions. I handle rotors with carbon on them daily, and it isn't really that big a deal...many rotors still have bare metal showing in places, and carbon less than 1/32" thick. Even the few times I see flakes of carbon laying everywhere, the stuff is so light and thin, it's literally as soft as a piece of burned up newspaper...touch it and it disentigrates to dust. This stuff is not going to break a seal, bottom line.

I could halfway see it if an engine with heavy buildup was left to sit, and the "flakes" fell to the bottom, collecting and hardening as a unit (possibly with humidity/water and oil and other stuff draining there too) and that whole clump not allowing movement...but this would take years of sitting idle to accomplish.

Sounds like you wedged an apex seal...they roll out during startup or shutdown, and though this is the same action that happens when you blow seals while driving, the engine doesnt have the momentum to overcome the wedge, so the engine locks instead. Even if you get it unlocked, you still have the destroyed seals, rotor, and housing to deal with, so you have a blown engine anyway you look at it.

Hey i go to uti ... i hate that place there so bias toward rotary engines i asked a Mr. Kitterman first phase(for me) abd he said that they just talk about it and never touch or disscus anything indepth into it. i drive the White toyota Supra and the Red Wrx(bug eyed)

no offense but i hate all of those automotive trade schools. the students that we have come into the field from them know little about cars still even after a year of "learning".


best teacher is hands on, get out there and break a few cars and get yelled at and you will learn quick, i did.

I consider myself a damn good mechanic, but shit, considering the fact that you had no prior warning WHATSOEVER, and that things seem visibly ok, that's tough to figure out.
Considering:
It was running fine. It sat. Now the engine's locked up.
Hell I'm stumped. I know when it comes to turbochargers, that if the turbo is hot as hell after a hard run, then you shut the car off and cut it's oil supply, then the oil thats left in the bearing(s) "cokes" up and the turbo basically seizes. Maybe the same goes for carbon in some sort of way. I guess try the de-carbonization method. Get something in the chambers and let it sit. I used a can of PB blaster once.....
What kind of oil do you use??? What was the water temp gauge reading the whole time???

(Here's a ridiculous theory: It was SOOO incredibly hot in the engine, and due to a (possible) lack of oil/ OMP oil for the apex seals, that as the engine sat, it cooked itself to death due to lots of friction from the side seals and apex seals having little or no oil, that the side housings warped and are "pinching" a rotor. Basically, unable to move now whatsoever.)

Brian

Well.... sounds like I'm screwed to the door.... but it is FANTASTiC to know that there are & owners at UTI, I won't feel too out of place then... This whole Cali thing is still kinda biting me in the rear, it's insanly different then what I'm used to.... as far as the car goes, when I tried hand cranking, Yes it was in neutral, (it's a stick) the starter was NOT stuck (i had removed it) just a bit worried now is all.... I was planning on putting in a turbo motor, so maybe this is divine intervention telling me to get it done.....

And any tips for UTI would be appreciated as well.... (you can never know too many people) tour guides are welcome too... lol

you can get a junkardspec motor(tall block) for under 300 here in california.
at a pick your part