Well, considering that without a snorkel you can wade to about 3 feet deep without sucking in water, you'd have to get it so seriously wrong that you'd deserve it ;-)
I've asked this question before in the past, and comments about the engine sucking the pipework until it knackered it were floating about. I can't think of a reliable way to do it that doesn't risk breaking it! Also you'd need to check all the airflow, snorkel, filter, pipes to intercooler, intercooler itself, pipes from intercooler etc etc... I was told to use silicon sealant on all joints, and to remove the water traps on the wing intake pipe and the air filter itself, then cross my fingers..
And for those of you in Australia, "water" is a substance that can cause problems when ingested into an engine, it also helps plants to grow, so watch out for it, it's important!
How about: (disconnect battery) Get a manometer on the airinlet ( u tube, part filled with water) seal the airinlet system, then bar the engine a bit ? You should create vacuum in the inlet, which, barring leaks should hold for a while.
Not 100% sure what you're on about here, but I suppose the technique you're suggesting is to try and suck the air out of the air intake system while the engine isn't running to see if it's airtight. Might work, although you'd always be guessing what negative air pressure is "good enough" to prove the system. Sounds like a better bet than just plunging into the water with fingers crossed!
"Mark Solesbury" wrote in message news:4I6dnWpeh8 snipped-for-privacy@bt.com...
I travelled from Scarborough to Hull on Monday at the height of the flooding and went through a couple of feet of water without one with reasonable ease.
I was the ONLY vehicle to make it from Beverly to the Humber Bridge area after 2:00pm (I went through at about 5:00pm)
I drive a perfectly standard (well almost) ten year old 300TDi
On Tue, 26 Jun 2007 12:24:09 -0500, William Black wrote (in article ):
As someone who has managed to actually float my '96 Disco ( very briefly) with water over the hood twice. Water coming in the driver side window once ( took out the alarm system), I would have to say you can get away with it for very short time. I don't think there is that much difference between a V8 and a TDI in this instance. You get an air bubble in the engine compartment that keeps you going for a while. I don't know about the TDI but the disco is rated by the factory to 23 inches. Keep the speed down to keep the water off of the electronics.
I have added a snorkel kit since then. Water will eventually get the electronics wet on a V8 and stall the engine, but at least the snorkel will reduce the chance of hydrolocking. Electronics can be dried out and fuses replaced.
That being said I don't know about checking for leaks. Covering the top won't tell you if you have any leaks even if it stalls. A small leak isn't going to show up that way.
IIRC low voltage electrics don't really mind the water, the high voltage stuff won't handle it though, hence diesels being better at it than petrols as diesels don't have a high voltage circuit. I just plonked my ohm-meter's leads into water and got a reading from 50K to
100K even with the leads right next to each other, so the electrickery isn't going to pay much attention to it in simple switching circuits like most of the car ones.
Add a grain or three of salt and try again. Also you ohm-meter will probably only be running at 1.5v not the 14 to 15v of a car with the engine running.
I do broadly agree that a bit of wet shouldn't upset a modern car but then all exposed connections are booted with a lip or O ring and have a blob of silicone grease on the contacts inside to keep the damp out. It's the electrolytic corrosion and time that a tiny bit of damp can trigger that is the real killer rather than the wet itself.
I don't think the voltage is going to make a difference at this level, at HT voltages it's a different matter, that can jump gaps, at least it ought to, car won't go otherwise ;-)
Don't think we need to worry about salt, there's enough impurities in the water as it is, given that it was my bathroom sink! Must give it a clean sometime.
I've run simple electronic gear underwater, stuff with more complicated circuitry isn't so simple due to other factors coming into play, but things like relays and switches don't really worry much. Simple car electronics, even without waterproofing, don't seem to mind occasional submerging much, as you say the real reason for all the damp proofing is to keep out constant damp leading to corrosion.
When I was a little new graduate in the electronics business a salesman came round hawking silicon spray. His sales pitch was to spray a bayonet light fitting (sans bulb) and dump it in a bucket of water and plug it in. He sold some to my boss on the strength of this.
So we had to try and reproduce it. It worked.
So we found another socket and put that on a variac (variable voltage transformer) and tried it. We wound up the power waiting for bubbles and got nothing.
So we fitted a 100W bulb and in an untreated socket at the bottom of a bucket of water it lit up nicely.
This is the point where the boss went all health and safety on us and made us stop.
I've seen a scuba diver in fresh water run a set of Christmas-tree lights down to 20 meters. He put some duck tape on it expecting that to keep it working on the surface but anticipated it would quit as the pressure drove the water into the airspaces of the battery pack but it just kept working. I met him coming down as I was going up and nearly drowned laughing. It wasn't so much the fairy lights but the tutu for the whole Christmas Fairy ensemble. A tutu over a drysuit with wand and lights.
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