Seawater in engine

[John R]

I posted this on the "all forums", but it occurs to me that this might be the more appropriate location:

I did something incredibly stupid and I'm pretty sure I got a fair amount of seawater in my Universal diesel engine (fresh water cooled). Is there anything I can do to prevent major damage? What should be my next step(s)?

 

[woodster]

Drain out the engine maybe using an oil change pump and if you storing the boat for winter fill it with new oil and run it for awhile and then check the oil to see if is milky if so pump out hat oil and reload again doing the same thing and again check it for the milky looking oil or if you are storing it for some period of time just Drain the oil and put as much diesel fuel in their as you can and don't run the engine then at the end of your storage time pump out the diesel fuel and load with oil and then do the run thing looking for milky oil at that time doing the diesel fuel thing is called Pickeling hope this helps

 

[Maine Sail]

Need more info. How did the water get into the engine? Where from? Did you hydro lock it? Did you then try to crank it?

If this was a typical case of; "I connected a garden hose to my engine and hydrolocked it" then you will need to pull the injectors or glow plugs and hand crank the water out of the cylinders. Change the oil & filter then run it for a LONG time to burn any residual water out of it off. If the engine was running then the hydrolock occurred then you may have caused serious damage...

Again we need a lot more info...

 

[Charles Erwin]

If seawater water backflow (an overflow then into the combustion chamber(s) via exhaust valves) the objective is to get all liquid out of the combustion chamber(s). Remove the exhaust manifold. Put a shop vac to the now open exhaust ports while you gently turn the motor by hand. If you feel resistance stop and rotate the crank shaft the other direction. Same thing at the intake side. When you can turn the crankshaft 360 twice with no resistance then the liquid is gone.

The rest of the story includes a complete oil change and etc.

The major concern here obviously is rings seizing to the bore - that is rust and the resultant debris. As you can see, this process will not assure there is no damage however if you get at it pronto then you will have a fighting chance.

Charles

 

[John R]

Thanks for the suggestions. I don't think I hydrolocked it. I'm pretty sure a good amount of water got up into the engine. Pure stupidity/carelessness on my part. From what I'm reading, I can either remove the manifolds or remove the injectors and then crank the engine by hand, change oil, etc. Is that correct - that I can do either to allow the water to exit?

 

[Maine Sail]

Thanks for the suggestions. I don't think I hydrolocked it. I'm pretty sure a good amount of water got up into the engine. Pure stupidity/carelessness on my part. From what I'm reading, I can either remove the manifolds or remove the injectors and then crank the engine by hand, change oil, etc. Is that correct - that I can do either to allow the water to exit?

We need to know HOW / WHERE the water got into the engine in order to help....

 

[John R]

I haven't answered "how" because I'm embarrassed at how incredibly stupid what I did was. The engine was overheating, and the water flow out the exhaust seemed to be minimal/insufficient. I changed my impeller and still no flow, so I figured something was clogging up one of the hoses. I asked the person helping me to disconnect the hose leading to the exhaust with the idea of trying to unblock whatever was clogging things up by pumping water through the hoses. He didn't take the hose loose and I didn't check, but I was able to pump water through the hoses. And guess where it went? It must have gone up into the engine. (Subsequently, I found the blockage, which was at the outlet of the heat exchanger, which was blocked with salt.)

 

[woodster]

well don't let that bother you there has been a lot worse things happen out there ....no one is born with this knowledge and when you are a diy person you are allowed to make mistakes

 

[John R]

Thanks for the sympathetic words, Woody, but I still feel really dumb.

Just to be sure it's understood exactly what I did: I figured the water pump on the motor didn't have enough pressure, so I took the hand pump (the one used to pump out the bilge, etc.) and taped the outlet hose of it to the hose leading from the motor's water pump. I can tell you one thing: that hand pump does have more pressure (unfortunately).

 

[woodster]

I figured the water pump on the motor didn't have enough pressure, so I took the hand pump (the one used to pump out the bilge, etc.) and taped the outlet hose of it to the hose leading from the motor's water pump.

was that the raw/sea water pump or the circulating pump

 

[John R]

What I did was use the hand pump used to, for example, pump water out of the bilge.I think you know what I mean -- looks similar to a bicycle tire pump.I used duct tape to tape the hose onto the hose on the engine. I can tell you, it does develop more pressure than the sea water pump on the engine.