water in the engine

[Freeman Stephen]

i left an engine on a piece of dry land and came back to discover half submersed in a puddle. Ive tried starting it and nothing. Drained the air filter which is made of sponge rather than paper stuff. Ive even pulled out the spark plug and tried to pour out any water from the carb nothing poured out. Will the engine ever work again. Will it dry out in its own sweet time. If i pull the thing apart what am i looking to fix? Advice please.

[Diogenese]

Hi Freeman Stephen,
there are two areas you need to address: the carburretor, which will need to be stripped down anyway as you left it standing, just lay a light sheet out on a flat surface and dismantle the carb. placing all the bits in order of removal; petrol, o-rings (and carb. innards) these don't go well with water so wipe them dry (and clean - with petrol) and remove all traces of the water in the system. Rebuild - being careful to retain ALL the fiddly o-rings that you find on the way. The oil in the engine will need to be changed if any water got into it at all! drain the oil and before you replace it; run some finer oil (such as WD-40 or similar proprietary light oil - that is hygroscopic - through the whole engine casing), this will remove or absorb any remaining water and allow the new oil to avoid being contaminated. The sponge air filter can be flushed with petrol, then cleaned and dried by wrapping it in an old towel or absorbent material to take the fuel back out of it - until dry. Reassemble - using the end of the crank, turn the engine by hand a few times to make sure there are no bi-metal, or "rust" siezures from stopping things like pistons from moving freely. If all goes well it will crank normally after this (will take longer than normal because fuel AND oil have to circulate to get to the parts and areas that matter) and eventually start, have an extra electric source available (such as an additional battery) to help at this stage - good luck!
Let me know if an engineer/vehicle technician would be of any use at Gartbeth in the future? regards, Baz :O)

[dubmeup]

Personally, i wouldn't be stripping the carb at this stage. It's possible that there may be some internal 'furring' as a result of the aluminium oxidising for sure and also that various seals, o-rings etc may have perished. However, that would have to be at quite an extreme level (unlikely) to cause the car not to start at all. The most likely cause of the car not starting is the ignition system. Either it being damp, or one or two vital components being kaput. The car needs air, fuel and spark to run. So once you've vouched that there is no water actually inside the engine in the way outlined above, those are the things to check. Air is easy, just make sure the air filter is clean. Fuel is also similarly easy to check (Assuming you've checked the car has fuel in the tank ). There are a few ways to check fuel. You could just turn the engine over and see if you can sniff petrol for a start. Pulling off the hose that supplies fuel to the fuel pressure regulator on the carb and sticking it in a glass whilst a friend turns the key would be another (more reliable) way. If fuel comes out into the glass, you have fuel. Spark is quite easy to check as well. Take a spark plug out, stick it's lead back on and rest it against the cylinder head. Get a mate to turn the key and you should see spark (don't touch the bugger though cos we are talking 20,000 volts or so!). If anyone of those checks doesn't pan out as it should, you have something to go on. There's obviously more possibilities, but that's what i'd be looking at first.

[Freeman Stephen]

I finally got some time to strip down the genny but the very first hurdle was the spark plug, which i cleaned reinserted and voila it works. problem is that it has no battery charger and the one i bought to plug into the mains only outputs 64w maximum. i need about 4 to 600 watts. can a standard battery charger do that and should i consider using a battery of batteries to handle the juice i want to pump through it?

[dubmeup]

Sorry, didn't get it was a generator
Same principles though and glad you've got it running.
Are you just trying to charge batteries or to use the power 'live' so to speak?