Engine under muddy water - NOW WHAT?!
 

hi guys,

My car was in a flood. Muddy water in the exhaust and possibly engine. Lots of wate drained out after unbolting the precats.

I pulled the engine and took off manifolds and spark plugs and turned it over by hand. It was rusty and dirty looking into the ports.

I put ATF in there and rotated from the flywheel and flushed it out on its side. I also sprayed carbcleaner through while I rotated the engine many many times.

Murky colored oil and cleaner came out and GRITTY SAND CAME OUT with it.

At one point in the beginning of cleaning it out, the engine wouldn't even turn it would bind up like metal to metal and the oil helped free it up.

Will this sand ruin the engine if I don't get it all out? I flushed best I could. Should I take off the oil pan too?

My friend says that sand is softer than metal and it will break up and blow out when you run the engine. What do you think?

PLEASE ADVISE!
Thanks!
Dave

Sugar is softer than metal too... rebuild time.

Grit and apex seals do not go together.

I'm afraid we are going to have to face reality and do a very nice rebuild. Even if you don't need to right now the engine will be better off with it. Sorry to here about the flood.
regards,
Charles

Unless you dont car about thins like this, dont tell your insurane. because itll show up as a flood car in a carfax from now on.

I would get a new shortblock ready for install unless you want to remove the undamaged one youhave and rebuild it.

(reccomended)

Otherwise, oil the HELL outta it, drop the itake and exhaust systems off of it and gently work the crap out of it. run TONS of oil through it move.

And no, sand is NOT softer than metal.
NOT!!!

it WILL scrape the hell outta your engine before giving up and disintegrating.

The best thing to be for your car was to NEVER have moved the engine AT ALL

strip it down and rinse it out for hours/days.

allow the grit to leave the way it came into the block before getting bound in the engine, but its too late for that.

Good luck.

Rebuild it, or it will destroy itself and you will be buying more parts for the rebuild, and doing it anyways at a higher cost. Your bearings have been exposed to water now, along with everything else in the engine, regardless of the tolerances. I wouldn't even turn it over anymore, as the sand will scratch the internals. If you have ever been to the desert, you know that sand can get in EVERYTHING and you find it months later in everything!

I had a car flooded in the early 90's during the heavy rains in LA. They had to replace all of the electronics in the car and they had to rebuild the engine as well.