This time it's for a friend of mine's 99 Firehawk. He hydrolocked his motor on Monday night. Luckily He was idling with the clutch in. Unluckily he tried to restart it and messed up the starter.One side of the mating surface is busted off of the starter. A replacement is on the way. The worst part is that the outer portion of the mating surface sticking off of the block busted too. It split off right down the center of the bolt hole. I'll have pics later.

I figure if we can thread the bolt in to keep the teeth straight then weld the broken piece back on, we should then be able to run a tap into the hole and clean it up. It should be strong enough to work as long as he avoids those deep puddles in the future and doesn't try to start a hydrolocked motor.

Can you help us out. I know you said you would have been willing to help me out when I put a hole in my oil pan. I think the broken piece is far enough form everything that there shouldn't be any problems with melting plastic and wires or starting a fire.


BTW - Warning to all FTRA owners in Florida, in the rainy season especially, pull off the sealing strip of rubber in front of the air lid assembly. I will never have a FTRA. I've always thought they were a bad design. Now I know they are.

 

Sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, I've been there - I have the obliterated pistons and pieces of the block to prove it! LOL I didn't have the FTRA though. All I had done was removed the upper/lower radiator baffling and did the FRA mod. Sure makes a guy paranoid. I have the FTRA now and am pretty cautious. I presonally think the SSRA would be worse (from a hydralock standpoint) since it's much lower to the ground.

I'd do more than remove the rubber strip. I'd also block off the lower air duct so that you only get air through the front opening. Shouldn't be racin' around in the rain anyway (unless you're in the MSCC ) Don't count on one of those oil-based filters to prevent water-injestion, either.

Too bad you couldn't pull a lever and it would automatically seal the bottom of the airbox and/or unshroud the front of the airbox.

How did he get water in it while he was idling?

 

He said that he started to get deep into a puddle and hit the clutch to let the car roll through. The bottom of the FTRA must have acted like a straw and sucked it up. Everything was sealed real tight.

 

I bet the water hit his airdam and the velocity of the impact pushed it up the scoop and through the filter. I did the wrong thing too. When mine started stuttering I tried to encourage it to get past the puddle. That was my downfall. But insurance covered it under comprehensive and I'm basically better for it. This block has more piston slap than my first block did, but I got some mods out of the money as well.

 

I fixed an engine not too long ago that had that same exact thing happen. Except that the starter broke because the tech left off the inner starter bolt. The engine WAS out of the car, but I'll take a look at what he's got and see if I can get a welder in there. . Email me with a phone # and I'll come take a look at it. I've got till Monday off.

 

Thanks. Sent you a PM.

 

Hi! I am the guy Chuck is talking about with the hydrolocked engine. Seems that my insurance wants to make sure the problem is water damage in the engine and they want me to take the car to a shop to have them break down the engine first before covering any of the work. They want proof, even though Chuck along with the guy who was riding with my are witnesses. I am questioning that they'll deny me coverage with the FRA still in place (FTRA has been removed). The adjuster already took pictures of the lid remove and the baffleless airbox. I don't want to have a shop break it down and have them blame the problem on the baffleless airbox (FRA). The adjuster didn't find any water in the airbox or the filter (hmm what do you expect 9 days later sitting in the sun). I was thinking about taking my Car to Norris Motorsports because they understand these cars better than most shops around Orlando. Or should I even gamble with the insurance, and just try to have the starter mounted, and then turn the motor and push the water through spark plug holes? I was even thinking about replacing the water that I pulled out from the intake and cylinders and putting everything back together and taking it to Norris. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

I orignally had the car towed to Mealey Chevrolet. They diagnosed it as hydralock and the adjuster agreed. After finding out my options through the dealer I had it towed to Norris. He handled it from there. Good or bad, he's completely honest with the adjuster. The insurance company wants proof from a shop because a shop has more to lose than you from insurance fraud

Mike's a good guy. I say call Norris (407-656-2600) and explain the situation - honestly. He'll know the symptoms

I take it the block and internals are OK - just that you are missing a bit of material from the block to mount the starter? All you need is is the starter replaced, an oil change, and new coolant?

Where are the pics?

 

I see, did the dealership question your FRA mod? That is my biggest concern about taking it to a dealer. If not, then I may just go ahead and try that. I found a welder to check out the starter mount hole on the block. So maybe it just needs the starter, an oil change and new spark plugs. Arg, please let me know how it worked out with the FRA. Thanks again

 

Sorry, I'll get those pics going right now.

I still say we fix the starter, blow the water out, put it all back together and see how it runs. If it's already got internal damage doing this won't hurt a thing. But call Norris and see what he says. I can always bring my vid cam and tape the water shooting out when we crank it over. lol

Does anybody know how to get ahold of Whistler. Maybe he's just too busy? But I sent him a PM with Bill's # (as requested) and we haven't heard from him.

 

Bill: I believe it was brought to the attention of the adjuster. They also took photos of my cutout. I guess they were looking for reasons not to cover it *shrug*. The adjuster might have caught the FRA mod anyway. Seems they are pretty adept at locating this stuff. I'd have to dig it up, but I'm pretty sure the adjusters report mentioned a modified intake path.

Chuck: You have a PM.

 

Chuck-

Sorry, I didn't check my PMs... I was waiting for you to email me. My # is 407-737-0639

 

No prob. Thanks. I gave Bill the info and he's gonna call you.


Here are some pics. (finally) You'll probably have to cut and paste.
http://2002.cz28.com/block%20damage%20low.JPG
http://2002.cz28.com/block%20damage.JPG
http://2002.cz28.com/starter%20damage.JPG