Thought I'd share a happy (and probably lucky!) story about my recently purchased Rover 420 TD.
I bought it last Saturday, with a seized turbo, meaning to fix it at some point (still gave me 46 mpg over the week though!)
Anyway, this morning on the way to work, I came across a flood in the road (it turned out to be just over sill-depth). Of course, that normally isn't high enough to reach the intake, so I plunged on in, confident that I'd be the idiot in the diesel car with a bow wave.
Until the engine went "klonk" and stopped dead, instantly.
What I didn't know then, but do know now, is that the intake pipe had a whopping hole in it, right at the bottom. Ho hum.
Now, the stupid thing to do is try and crank an engine full of water, but having been up at 2am the night before I wasn't feeling too bright and thought I could reverse it out on the starter (with an engine full of water that was never going to happen). The starter just jammed against the flywheel.
By this point, water was starting to pour in over the sills, so I moved my laptop out of a footwell onto a seat, all the time with that "sinking feeling". A passing 4x4's bow-wave actually floated my car off the ground briefly. I should point out that this floodwater smelt quite strongly of sewage. :P
I sat there for a while thinking about what to do. I called my recovery service, who informed me that actually I wasn't covered for recovery from water, and it was my own stupid fault for driving into it in the first place!
At this point I figured that I might as well try to push it out of the water (I was already soaked since the footwells has filled up with water right up to the center console). So I got out and tried to heave it backwards towards dry land (uphill). Fortunately a local farmer was passing in his Landy and took pity on me and towed the car out backwards. Anyway, being out of the water changed the story with the recovery service, and they agreed to come out and bring me and the car home.
So, I'm at home with my car in the street with a puddle forming around the car as the footwells drain. At this stage I wasn't holding out much hope for the engine, especially given my cranking attempt.
I figured out that the best way to get water out of the cylinders was to remove the injectors and crank it on the starter. After dismantling the intake and getting the injectors out, it was clear from shining a torch into the holes that there was a lot of water sitting in the cylinders. I checked the cambelt, which appeared OK.
So I got my wife to watch the engine to see if any water dribbled out, while I cranked it.
bonnet disappeared in a cloud of water, including my wife (she saw the funny side, thankfully!). It just kept coming, much like the Bournemouth dancing waters, but in the firing sequence of the cylinders. I'm still amazed so much water could be in an engine, as were the neighbours and other passer's by, who stopped to watch the fool with a fountain in his engine bay.
So I returned the injectors to the engine to see if it would turn over without stopping, which it did, after a few false starts. I reconnected the fuel system, all the time suspecting that something else would be broken...
Much to my amazement, it started to fire on a few cylinders (with a bit of throttle work) and eventually all four! Out of the exhaust emerged a vile concoction of water, diesel and oil, and it continued to run really lumpy, all the time putting out clouds of oily smoke (at this stage I was convinced the gasket was gone).
But as it ran, it cleaned up until it was running normally. I took it for a quick blast up the road (clearning more mess out of the exhaust), and everything was fine.
However - and this is the really odd bit - the turbo had un-seized, and was whistling away quite happily, giving lots of lovely boost!
I've driven it about a fair bit tonight and it really is running well. I'm delighted. :)
So this is a tribute to the amazing strength of the Rover 2.0 TD engine, which survived water ingestion without stripping the cambelt, popping a gasket or bending either the valves, crankshaft or camshaft.
Thought you would all appreciate a story with a happy ending.
THE END :)