Ok so anyone who lives on or near long island knows we got some extreme rain last night. Driving home from work my block was flooded as usual and I never had a problem. I have a CAI but it is situated where I never had a problem with the water.

Last night was different.

Upon fording the river my car stalled out and in fear of hydro lock I didn't bother trying to start it. Instead I took off my work shoes, socks, rolled my pants up and simply pushed the car into the front of the house where the water wasn't so deep (2 inches)

I tried to start the car but all i heard was clicking. I can't go into details beyond what I say because it was cold and dark and the amount of troubleshooting i was able to do was limited.

I'm pretty savvy with mechanical things, so I pushed the car into the driveway and pulled the spark plugs thinking if would give the water some place to go. I tried to crank it and I still heard click click click as i turned the key to start it. I inspected the spark plugs and they weren't even wet! It was always my assumption that a hydro locked motor was waterlogged and you'd have, at the least, web spark plugs. Hell, they were still hot when I pulled them. It was too dark to see inside the cylinder(s) to look for water.

I had the g/f drive me to work, and with Valentines day today and work again on Friday I won't be able to sink any time into repairing it until Saturday.

In thinking about it, I'm thinking i may have just stalled the car out, and water-logged the starter. I may be mechanically inclined but I lack experience.

So... what do you guys think?

In addition, here are my specs
94 Celica 1.8 manual w/ CAI
147K (used to) run mint.

Thanks for your time everyone!!

sounds like a dead battery almost.
or a locked up starter, try banging it with a hammer.

and IF its was hydrolocked try this

drain the oil.
put new oil in.
pull the spark plugs out.
vacuum out the cylinders with a shop vac and a makeshift attachment to get inside of the cylinders.
spray the inside of the cylinders with wd-40.
replace plugs.

try and start it

This post has been edited by x_itchy_b_x: Feb 14, 2008 - 1:57 PM

you can try to see if you can turn the crank by hand with a big wrench.

good ideas so far! fast replies too! the suspense is going to kill me lol

If your fuse box got wet you might have fried the starter relay. Check that out as well.

touch a scrwdriver from the starter solenoid to the postive line wire on the starter it will rule out the relay. if not it's prob your starter that is fried.

starters dont like taking baths, probably pooched the starter.

thanks for the advice everyone I'll let you know what it winds up being!

Update:

It was hydrolocked. I had some friends give me a rolling start and i'd pop the clutch to force the engine to move. I did this because I (thought) I didnt see any water in the combustion chambers.

After the first push, I looked under the hood and noticed some water came out!! We repeated the process a few more times getting more and more water out and the engine eventually was able to turn over. I cranked it and watched a beautiful water show as the pistons pushed out the water.

At this point I was satisfied so I put the plugs/wires back in and cranked it. Something was wrong, I had absolutely no compression...

I'm leaning towards my hypothesis that the timing belt slipped a bit and screwed up the timing.

In the next day or two I'll rent a towing dolly and use my friends truck to tow my car to the shop to get it checked out. Its a shame I only have 15K on this timing belt/water pump! doh!

Assuming this is the problem, I think I was lucky. I'll keep this thread updated, and thanks again for the help/advice!

though you may have gotten a lot of water out, you may not have gotten all of it.

Im confused.
1st you said the timing belt went out. The the car ran again, but you drove over a puddle. Then you found water coming out of the engine (what part?), and then you think the original timing belt diagnosis was correct?

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Huh? I never said the timing belt went out... the car stalled in the water. I got water to come up from the spark plug holes when i had friends push the car and i popped the clutch.(forcing the engine to turn) It turned out to have water after all and my initial observations were wrong... my next GUESS is the timing belt slip, along with the water being sucked up.

I also never got the car running... maybe you have me mixed up with someone else? Or I'm going insane lol

I guess I got you confused with whoever was on here a few days ago saying that his timing belt went out.
If you had water coming out of the plug holes, then the motor is pretty much dead.

yeah...I've got to agree with Lagos on this one. You may have just shot your motor. After you sucked up water you shouldn't have tried to start it at all. The real issue with hydrolock is not extinguish plugs; that's an easy fix, let them dry out. But bad stuff happens when you suck up a good amount of water. I think you understand that water doesn't compress like air does. So when that piston tries to come up, something gives...and it won't be the water. My friends CAI sucked up water into her b18, and then another friend tried to compression start it for her. Needless to say, either the initial stalling, or the push start ended up blowing two quarter sized wholes in either side of her block where the mangled rod hit. And then I got to replace her motor for her.

Anyway, a word to the wise, after sucking up water, never, ever try and start the car (with key, or compression) until you've taking out the plugs, turned the motor over by hand, and inspected it. I really hope your motor's fine, but if you're not getting any compression, you might want to start preparing yourself for the worst...

he did take out the plugs when he tried to start.
maybe not the first time, but she didnt turn over

If it sucked water in while running, it probably did serious damage like bent rods etc. As mentioned above, water does NOT compress, so something has to give, usually head gasket, bent rods, pistons sometimes,,,

Pull the plugs, do a compression test, and go from there depending on results. Saw a friends 318 Dodge conn. rods after sucking water, they were seriously bent into C shapes.

Also be sure to pull the dist cap and flush out any water with WD40 or some other brand that displaces water. Let dry afterwards as the carrier in the wd40 is flammable.

Well here is the update -

I rented a tow dolly and brought it into the shop and got a proper diagnostic.

I didn't seem to notice the hole in the motor! For $1400 they can get me a used engine (with 80k on it) and swap it out for me. While its out I'm having the clutch (and the appropriate bearings) replaced for $150

they showed me the hole and i took a picture of it -



I was a bit optimistic going into this, but I wasn't surprised when I needed a new motor. At least I'm getting a new clutch out of it

Thanks again for all the help guys

P.S - What the heck caused the hole to be made right by the alternator? No piston there, and no connecting rod, correct?

This why I have always said CAI is not worth it. The 2 HP gain [maybe if the extra piping/bends doesn't kill that] isn't worth this.
But oh no - the CAI guys wanna argue this point all the time
SRI>CAI anyday.
Very sorry to hear about you loss bro - It happened to me once too. I just immediately shot as much of the water out as poss and then did two full flushes of oil [road side] and then changed the oil [roadside] and she started up first try and no problems since [last 6gc - not this one]. Change the oil again a few days leter to - just for good measure. Motor ran like a champ for 75K longer all the way up to some a$$hole totalling it.

This post has been edited by DEATH: Feb 19, 2008 - 4:11 PM

^ bypass valve. cai wins. but $1400 for a 5sfe with 80k... i'd check and see if anyone on here who has done a swap has their old 5sfe hanging around.

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Not that simple. For example I live in a Country where it really never floods. So i really dont need to be afraid of a hydrolock, unless I drive my car into a lake, but then the engine would be filled with water anyway.

Things aren´t that black and white.

It was the stock CAI BTW that did it and it has bypass valve.
The gains are minimal if at all - all those extra bends rob your 2HP.
No need to beat this dead horse - opinions are like...

Me and Death live in a place where flooding is a way of life. We don't get earthquakes or blizzards. But 10 feet of water in the house is not an unusual sight for us.

Although a baby grand piano suspended from the ceiling 15 feet in the air does qualify as an unusual sight.

This post has been edited by thespacepanda: Feb 19, 2008 - 6:17 PM

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Man, I wanna live in the states. We dont get tornados, earthquakes nor floods. Damn, Finland is Boring. All we get is snow.

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Believe it or not it wasn't by choice... the car was in an accident once upon a time and the air intake box was smashed. It was cheaper to buy a cold air intake than buy a new box. (the car has since fixed and repainted)

Nah it's totally cool. I tried probable 5-6 intake setups on 3 diff 6gc GT's and the last one i came up with I called "Colder Air SRI" . Make you a good SRI by cutting your CAI and it will be worry free. You can always buy a heatshield if you want.

After this mess I'm not keeping it like this... I was thinking of cutting/modding it so it sat higher, pretty much where the air intake box hung out...

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Exactly. Hasslefree and nice and free flowing

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there are oil and coolant channels before you would get to the cylinder and the piston but yes, the cyl #1 piston and rod are right behind there. I'm not sure why it blew the hole through but thats why it wouldn't start, not enough oil and/or coolant pressure.