Everyone worst nightmare (Nut dropped in UIM without knowing)
 

A customer of ours dropped a nut into his UIM without knowing what he did. The sounds that came from the motor were just horrific. Klank Klank Klank........ Yuk!

I knew exactly what he did when I heard him start it up. We took the manifold off and metal chunks/peices of apex seals and a nut chopped in half came falling out of the exhaust port. After dissasembling the motor we found that the housing and rotor were completely demolished along with all 3 apex seals. This was expected though.


Reminder guys, always cover your intake holes while working on your motors.

I have pictures of the debris and carnage if anyone wants to see.

Jeff48 was there to witness the destruction.

Of corse we wan't to see pictures!
-Ben

oh man! that is not good. whos car was it?

quiet man my cars been down for a week I dont want to hear that shit

Todd, he has the red 3rd gen. We just put the T04S kit/alcohol on his car. The owner of Amarillo Tex's Steak House.

Thats sucks bigtime. I woulda shut it off the moment I heard that noise the first time. But at least he gets a Bi-State rebuild out of it right?

damn, i hope to get a better look of your shop the next time i come down.... If i ever get my car runnin that is :(

Yes. This happened at 4pm this afternoon (tuesday) and we'll have him on the road by friday.

Ill bet he gets a Bi-State rebuild out of it if he pays for it. From Resources explanation, sounds like the customer was the one that did it.

Yes, the customer was playing with his car when this happened. Actually Jeff48 and Todd were playing with it when it happened.

Yah, he's paying for it but it's not a big deal. We don't charge much for rebuilds I don't think. 1800 isn't too bad in my opinion.

I would think that the damaged parts would be what would bring the cost up.

PIXS!!!

It will. He'll need a rotor and housing.

A friend of mine did the same thing to a model year 2000 RS Engine he got form me with 5000km on it. I got a call after it was done and started "WTF the engine is blown". Sure enough a bolt got in there and took out his rotor and housing and turbine on the way out.

This thread gives you a shity feeling just thinking about it.

I'll get some pictures up tonight.

I saw it. UGLY SHIT. Figures... The one day I DON'T have my camera handy...

I broke off a piece of the air bleed sockets when trying to remove them and it fell into the engine. I used a shop vac with a modded nozzle (vinyl tubing and duct tape) to snake down into the chamber and vacuum it out!

Always stuff paper towels or put a shop rag over the intakes!


Brian

:Shudder: man that sounds awful. Let's see them pics.

Don't people wonder what happened to the missing nut after reassembling the intake manifold? :confused:

lets see the pics.

I saw the rotor and housing today. It was horrible.

It wasn't a nut from the UIM. It was some random little 10mm nut.. Did MUCH damage!

The full story on the destruction goes like this. I was datalogging and installing new maps for Todd's car. He changed the injectors to a 850/1600 configuration from stock and the idle sucked when it would start at all. We finally got it smoothed out at idle and it would start reliably. Todd noticed a gas leak at the primary rail and removed the UIM to get to the gas leak. With the leak fixed the UIM was reinstalled and he started the engine which started right up without a sound. We then cranked up the revs to start leaning out the mid maps when the car started sounding like it was missing. Plugs were checked and EGTs showed the rear manifold about 200 degrees colder than the front. We all started thinking the worst. The plugs were cleaned and I began a new datalog. The car cranked over, Ron heard a pinging noise and I noticed some big spikes in the knock log and told Todd to shut it down. We got it shut down in seconds. Still too late. We all went on a few minutes talking about how there was no way that the pinging could be detonation because we were pig rich still and there was no load on the engine. I suggested we run a compression test which showed 0 psi in the rear and we knew it was toasted.

Worst part of this whole thing is that Todd really didn't do anything wrong except forget to cover the holes in the LIM and we will never know how the nut (one of those little 10mm washer head nuts) came from . There were no nuts missing on the reinstall. The nut fell in there from somewhere, but it could have been anywhere including sitting on top of the UIM before the UIM was removed.

Moral of the story,

1. look twice before you remove anything to make sure there isn't a random piece sitting on it.

AND

2. if there is an open hole that can screw up your life----be very careful what goes in the hole! (double entendre' intended !)

:D

I just rebuilt the motor and took it for a drive tonight...... Just think, two days ago the motor was destroyed :)