I may have done something incredibly stupid. Cranked engine (Universal diesel) too long and may have backed sea water up into engine. Is there anything I can do to prevent damage?
Water in engine?
- Thread starter John R
- Start date
I had a scary encounter. Son-In-Law ex-boat mechanic said exchange oil with Diesel immediately and crank the engine. Let it even run a bit. This pickles the engine (his term). Finds and fix source of water. Then remove diesel and replace with temporary cheap oil. Run engine till hot, then change oil and oil filter. good luck!
Jim...
Jim...
I'm not sure if it hydrolocked because I don't remember if I ran the engine after I did that water pressure thing. However, I did pump some water up through the hose and there was nowhere for it to go but into the engine. It seems to me that the safe thing to do would be to do what you, Maine Sail, suggested - remove the injectors and turn the engine by hand - to make sure if there's water in the engine. That's better than finding out the hard way, no?
John, there is supposed to be an anti siphon on the water line feeding the nipple on the exhaust riser.
Where is the water, in the crankcase or cylinders? Water sucked up the exhaust is first ingested into the combustion chamber through the exhaust valves usually resulting in hydraulic lock or serious damage if forced to turn. Water does not compress very well and if entrapped in a cylinder on the compression stroke it will usually throw a rod or crack a piston. For a locked engine release compression and flush water out. Now if you have water in the crankcase you will have a grayish milky emulsion as the water mixes with the oil. This condition usually occurs from damaged gaskets where oil passages and cooling water passage are in close proximity. When they warn about not cranking the engine for more than 15-20 seconds at a time they are concerned about a rather quick and catastrophic engine damage and not water getting in the crankcase. I do not seem to hear from you that the engine is locked and that it is not turning so I think you might be alright. Turn the engine by hand to insure it turns freely and feel the compression cycles; if it does and shows compression but does not start then initiate diagnostics for a non starting engine. It will not hurt to change the oil after all is said and done. Good luck.
Rather than do all that just crank the engine over by hand with a breaker bar (with the engine stop pulled out). If you can get full revolutions of the crank then there is no water in a cylinder to hydrolock it.If there is water in a cylinder you will come up hard against resistance and the engine will not turn over. At that point you would pull injectors or glow plugs and then hand crank until the water is gone.
If you suspect water is in there you need to get it out ASAP. If it sat in there for too long you may want to do a Marvel Mystery Oil soak on the cylinders turning them slowly every few days.. I am still confused? Did you crank it for too long with the seacock open or feed it pressurized water? You seem to suggest both??
Yes, I'm aware of that anti-siphon. I think the water passed through there and into the exhaust riser. From there, wouldn't it have gone into the engine, or would it have passed out through the exhaust outlet?
It would have gone into the waterlift muffler first. When the waterlift was full it would then back up into your exhaust manifold... You will want to try turning it over by hand to see if it hydrolocked or not.
I just spoke with John, he's on his way to the boat. He remembers starting the engine successfully after the pumped water manually through his HX from the outlet hose of the rw pump! More soon, I guess.
Everything is okay (until the next problem).
First, to explain what happened from the start: My engine had been overheating and the flow of water out the exhaust seemed minimal. I started by opening up the raw water pump to check the impeller. Although it was okay, it's been well over a year since I changed it, so I put a new one on. I tried starting the engine, and at that point no water came out the exhaust at all. After much fumbling around, trying to figure out what I'd done wrong, I started taking hoses off. I figured something was blocked at some point in the line, so that's where I came up with my "stroke of genius":
I took the hand pump (the one that looks like a bicycle tire pump) and taped the end of the hose over the hose that leads from the engine water pump to the heat exchange and pumped some water through there. I think it was a couple of quarts. Then I tried it again, but still no water coming out the exhaust. Then I took off the hose that leads from the heat exchange through the vacuum break to the muffler. The elbow and nipple screwed into the heat exchange was almost entirely blocked with what looked like salt. I unscrewed that and cleaned it out. However, the nipple had come out of the elbow so I had to take it home to solder it back in. (It was only press fitted originally.) That night, I woke up in the middle of the night realizing what I'd done as far as pumping water through the hose. I haven't slept well the last two nights worrying about it.
Stu helped talk me through things. (Thanks so much, Stu!) He explained that the first place the water would go to would be the muffler, which he explained holds quite a bit more water than I had pumped into the hose. He also suggested that I open up the petcock on the bottom of the muffler to drain whatever water there was in there. (We figured that was where the water had gone.)
I did open up that petcock, but only about a tablespoon of water came out. Before starting the engine, and just to be extra safe (in case my memory was mistaken and I had not run the engine after pumping the water through), I took a wrench (a 12" crescent wrench worked) and turned over the engine a couple of times. I also checked the oil, which didn't show any signs of water in it. So at at that point, I was pretty confident that there was no water in the engine. When I cranked up the engine, water came out the exhaust in what looks like a good flow and the engine didn't overheat.
One mystery is what happened to that water I pumped through the hose. The only thing I can figure out is that maybe it stayed in the muffler and shot out immediately after the engine started the first time (the other day) and we didn't see it. Either that, or "good" gremlins. Another thing is that I would have thought that if the problem was purely the blockage of that nipple/elbow, that that would have occurred over time, meaning the flow of water would have been restricted slowly over time, meaning that the engine would have started running slightly hotter and slightly hotter over time. That didn't happen, so I'll have to keep an eye on things.
It's been quite a while since I've checked back onto this site and I'm so glad to see it's still going strong. Thanks to those who have kept it going and a million thanks to all those who offered suggestions. It's beautiful and windy here on the SF Bay, and I'm going to be thinking of you guys when I go out in the next few days!
First, to explain what happened from the start: My engine had been overheating and the flow of water out the exhaust seemed minimal. I started by opening up the raw water pump to check the impeller. Although it was okay, it's been well over a year since I changed it, so I put a new one on. I tried starting the engine, and at that point no water came out the exhaust at all. After much fumbling around, trying to figure out what I'd done wrong, I started taking hoses off. I figured something was blocked at some point in the line, so that's where I came up with my "stroke of genius":
I took the hand pump (the one that looks like a bicycle tire pump) and taped the end of the hose over the hose that leads from the engine water pump to the heat exchange and pumped some water through there. I think it was a couple of quarts. Then I tried it again, but still no water coming out the exhaust. Then I took off the hose that leads from the heat exchange through the vacuum break to the muffler. The elbow and nipple screwed into the heat exchange was almost entirely blocked with what looked like salt. I unscrewed that and cleaned it out. However, the nipple had come out of the elbow so I had to take it home to solder it back in. (It was only press fitted originally.) That night, I woke up in the middle of the night realizing what I'd done as far as pumping water through the hose. I haven't slept well the last two nights worrying about it.
Stu helped talk me through things. (Thanks so much, Stu!) He explained that the first place the water would go to would be the muffler, which he explained holds quite a bit more water than I had pumped into the hose. He also suggested that I open up the petcock on the bottom of the muffler to drain whatever water there was in there. (We figured that was where the water had gone.)
I did open up that petcock, but only about a tablespoon of water came out. Before starting the engine, and just to be extra safe (in case my memory was mistaken and I had not run the engine after pumping the water through), I took a wrench (a 12" crescent wrench worked) and turned over the engine a couple of times. I also checked the oil, which didn't show any signs of water in it. So at at that point, I was pretty confident that there was no water in the engine. When I cranked up the engine, water came out the exhaust in what looks like a good flow and the engine didn't overheat.
One mystery is what happened to that water I pumped through the hose. The only thing I can figure out is that maybe it stayed in the muffler and shot out immediately after the engine started the first time (the other day) and we didn't see it. Either that, or "good" gremlins. Another thing is that I would have thought that if the problem was purely the blockage of that nipple/elbow, that that would have occurred over time, meaning the flow of water would have been restricted slowly over time, meaning that the engine would have started running slightly hotter and slightly hotter over time. That didn't happen, so I'll have to keep an eye on things.
It's been quite a while since I've checked back onto this site and I'm so glad to see it's still going strong. Thanks to those who have kept it going and a million thanks to all those who offered suggestions. It's beautiful and windy here on the SF Bay, and I'm going to be thinking of you guys when I go out in the next few days!
