Hydro locked!

Talk about hydro lock!

While at Steel N Motion this weekend we enjoyed our share of rain. At one point I opened my hood and there was a fair amount of water that rolled off and into the engine bay right smack dab on the distributer and plug wires. I didn’t think much about it really.

Then a couple hours later it was time to make a few fun runs down the strip. When I fired the engine I knew something wasn’t right. But I wasn’t going to get into it right then and miss the other racing so I made my way back to my trailer so I could load with the wench later.

Without much thought I loaded and headed for home, and ran into a good deal of rain. Then yesterday morning we had torrential rains here for about an hour and half. I’m talking 4”-6” flash flood stuff.

So, just before lunch today I figured I would take it off the trailer and put it back under the shed.

When I tried to start it, it would not turn over! Seems some amount of water ran down into the hood scoop right on top of the air breather. It is one of the breathers that not only flows from the side but the top also. Water made it’s way down into the cylinders and hydro locked the dang thing!

I believe I can pull the plugs and spin it over to clear the cylinders and change the oil and I’ll be good to go.

Who would of thunk it! Lesson learned.

 

When you hydro lock them at full throttle you bend the shit out of connecting rods and dont make it across the river. Spend hours looking for a phone and break into a vending machine because your so hungry, have no money and the tow truck driver says 4 hours and wont bring a sandwitch for you. So you got that going for you.

 

happened to me years ago in my Class 8 off road race truck. Tried to start it and 1/4 turn and locked up. It actually bent a Chevy Pink rod! Hopefully your result will be better.

 

Maybe the advantage of having a cheap crap battery is that it didn’t have enough power to turn it over and the starter stalled without firing the engine.

 

I know a shop with a late-model Corvette customer complaining about having to add an inch of water to the radiator every two weeks... my buddy told him that's not uncommon on fresh-built LS engines, and to bring it in and they'd retorque the heads as it was probably just a little seeping past a head gasket after the engine was hot and it was going out the exhaust. He said to bring it in, in a week and they'd take care of it for him.
The guy was impatient and drove it in to a Chevy dealership, and the dealership did a leak-down test on it and verified that water WAS going somewhere into the engine and it was probably a head gasket, as evidenced by the water being a little lower in the radiator after their test.
The idiot tech didn't pull the plugs before turning the engine over, and tried cranking it with a cylinder full of water.
It blew the side out of the LS block. BOOM! The whole cylinder and back corner of the block shot out in pieces.
Then the dealership tried to say the guy voided his warranty because the engine was modified, and the damage was done by the custom engine builder.
After a few very hot phone conversations (including pointing out that the customer drove the car in to their dealership and it was running fine), the dealership paid to have the car flat-bedded to my friend's shop, and paid to have them build a new engine.

Water is definitely stronger than aluminum and steel, and it does not compress!

-Brad

 

I've seen more than one engine bend rods turning them over with a stock starter. Doesn't take a lot of fuel or water in the cylinder to cause problems.

 

I've got a bent rod hanging out in the shed out of a 400 sbc that had a cracked head and got too much water down the cylinder. I'd pull the plugs and drain the water out of the pan until you get oil and then crank it over and blow the water out. That way you won't be pumping the water in the bottom of the pan back up into the oil galleys. It might be peace of mind to change the oil and crank it over and then when it's running for a few minutes change the oil and filter again.

 

This is very common in some forms of racing. When I was running Super Modified circle track race cars with injected engines any time a car spins out the injection unit will fill the cylinders up with methanol fuel. The track crew always push the car backwards with the in and out box locked in. This pushes the methanol fuel out the exhaust and prevents braking or bending a rod. This procedure happens a few times a race.
I would say to hand crank the engine backwards and you should be OK.

 

Its extremely common around Charleston due to all the flooding we get here, Pull the plugs and clean the crap out of them or buy new, remove and inspect the dizzy cap, crank the engine over a hand full of times, change the oil, install the rest of the parts and hope

 

You MIGHT have been lucky and did not bend a rod when cranking it over, but don't bet on it. I first experienced this in 1967 when I towed in a new Ford truck that the Service Manager put into a ditch upside down. Wasn't upside down long, maybe an hour or so.
Dropped it off the back of the wrecker and proceeded to start it to park it. Engine went "unh" and stopped rotating....oil in at least one cylinder.....probably didn't turn a quarter turn. Bent rod!

Since have seen it a few times....does not take much to bend one. Starter torque multiplied by flywheel radius and it's pretty powerful. Liquids just don't 'give', metal does.

Hope you are one of the fortunate ones.

Ray

 

Thanks for that, I always wondered why they pushed em backwards a little.

 

One more story about Hydro Locked. Back in the 1970's and into the 80's I owned and drove World Class Hydroplanes. We raced in what was called the Grand Prix circuit. This wasn't drag racing but circle track racing eight boats wide flat out balls to the wall at speeds up to 175 MPH on the straightaways and 150 MPH into the turns. The class had everything from blown injected Hemi's to 400 plus injected small blocks on every kind of fuel we could mix. With no covers over the injector stacks you could and would get hosed down from the rooster tails of other boats from time to time. If luck wasn't in your corner and you got yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time that engine would swallow water from a rooster tail and hydro lock and explode in a second. I got tangled up with two other boats one time running around a buck sixty five and in a split second the engine blew apart and I was around backwards and went end over end in less than three seconds. Water can sure screw up a good day.
Johnny Sweet

Modified Hot Rod engines in hydroplanes.

 

cracked 2 pistons in my coupe....right at the ring lands. the perks of non hooded hot rods