God this sucks... it's 2:30am and I'm just wrapping it up. Something internal is broken... I'm ruling out a bent rod or anything like that because it's a very rapid light ticking coming from the front of the motor like a valvetrain part or possibly something to do with the timing chain.

Anyway....

There was flash flooding today and I was going down a back country road to my house after work. Lo and behold I come upon standing water and don't think anything of it..... it's only about 6 inches deep and there's a bunch of cars crossing. I take the Z pretty slow across ... probably around 5-8mph at the most to keep it moving so that I don't get stuck... All of a sudden click BOOM and the car dies... I try to restart it and the starter grinds its *** off. Great. Broken starter due to a hydrolocked motor.

I finally get it home after pushing it out of calf-high water and getting my cousin to tow me back a mile or so to my house and start diagnosing it:

I pulled all of the plugs and turned over the motor to get the water out. I then pulled off the TB and looked inside and saw a small pond of water resting on my valley cover :eek I jacked the car up in the back and poured the water out of it, then my Dad had a good idea to stick a towel in as a "wick" and draw the rest of the water out. After a run to the store and many curses/bruises, I removed/installed the new plugs and kept my fingers crossed. I hit the starter and CRRRRRRRRRKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!! ! No start I pushed the car down the driveway and popped the clutch to get it to start, but then heard the dreaded light tapping. The car runs perfectly, so I seriously don't think that it's a rod or spun bearing or anything like that, however, I'm going to have to pull the valve covers tomorrow or Saturday to see if I broke any valvetrain parts....

...Anyway.... 6:30am comes early and I have work....

 

damn that sux the big one bro. I Wish you luck man.

 

I guess it was time for a rebuild anyway...? Sorry to hear that. Did you have an SSRA on it. I have heard they can scoop water. I think it helped hydrolock my buddies Z. I still have mine on though.

 

Nah... the motor has around 30,000 miles on it... sucks.... like I said... it sounds like nothing too major... I expect it to be something valvetrain related.

 

That REALLY sucks! Like soul strife asked: Did you have some sort of aftermarket "ram air" or cold air kit?

I've seen several different engines (not all necessarily LSx) with slightly bent rods still run decently with only a little bit of a rough idle. Hopefully that's not the case and you just damaged the starter - not the block mount on the outboard starter bolt.

 

All I have is a lid. It shouldn't be a big deal. It's pretty unlucky to say the least.

 

so is it a tap or what? Like a pushrod noise?


Good luck with it, Should have drove that F-150.........FORD tuff

 

Your right - you can't hydrolock a late model Ford truck. If you get water in the cylinders they'll just spit the plugs right out of the cylinder heads to save the rods

 

Don't talk bad about the #1 truck in the world, I get offended.


Kraest pull it down tonight, I want to know what the deal is. Pull an all nighter

 

That sucks man,hopefully its nothing major like a bent pushrod.

 

A bent pushrod? I can only hope


I pulled the valvecovers and everything off. No broken rockers, no broken pushrods (they are 1 piece hardened), and no broken springs.

It's either a collapsed lifter or something worse.

It's going to Futral next week. I'm not about to pull the heads and stuff on it and find out that it's the bottom end


Mike

 

Sorry to hear man... Keep us informed as to what broke... I'll keep this as a Reminder that F-Bodies + Water = nono

 

How long did you let the motor run after you got it restarted? You can get a clacking sound from the AC compressor. The noise might go away if you let it idle up to temp? Good Luck

 

Fra ...?

 

Not really long. I need to change the oil before I attempt restarting it.