Help! Water in cylinders! (1 Viewer)

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C

Chicagomax

Joined
Dec 27, 2023
Threads
5
Messages
32
Location
Lake Barrington, IL
All,

You may have seen my other thread about the “heater hose” where I had a frozen coolant plug bolt on the head I had to drill out. Good news is I finally got it out today! Bad news is, when I reassembled everything, filled the radiator with water, I noticed the carburetor starting to fill with water? I let that drain, then I went to start the car and the engine would only halfway crank. I pulled the plugs, turned over the engine, and TONS of water came spraying from the cylinders!

Since the car ran fine before, I’m fearing that when I drilled out the coolant plug bolt, I drilled too far and went through something i shouldn’t have! Is there ANY other explanation for water going from the hose in the top of the radiator into the engine?? I hope so but am wondering if not how screwed I am!!

Ugh,

Max
 
Enough water in a cylinder while running/cranking will often bend a connecting rod. Yes, you could have drilled to far in and went into the intake or exhaust passage. If so you might be able tap threads in and screw in an oversized bolt/screw to seal things back up - way cheaper than a new head.

Do you have any local car people you can ask for help before you could ruin/damage more stuff. With the spark plugs out spray in some WD-40 and then crank the engine over for say 2 or 3 thirty second burst to drive out the water. Then do a compression check on all cylinders. Take the new hose/fitting off and listen for air pumping out while checking the cylinders in that area. Do not leave water in the bores. Check your engine oil too - water could easily be in the oil pan. Milky oil is not a good lubricant.
 
We need pics!!! In the other thread you were pointing to some vacuum fittings and wondering if they were for heater hoses; possible you hooked to one of them by mistake?
How much coolant did you put in it?
At this point, you need to drain ALL the coolant and ALL the oil. Dont keep trying to crank it or your bearings will be toast! Pull all the plugs, drain oil and coolant and post really good pics so we can see where your heater hoses are going.
 
Thanks @Skreddy - see below for photos of the hoses. Only thing not shown is the to/from the vintage air heater, but the (outlet?) goes to the “T” on the lower radiator hose, and the (inlet?) comes from the port right behind the coolant sensor.

Gosh I’m hoping this is as simple as a hose connected incorrectly!

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Your shinny new fitting looks to be right above #6 intake. I hope its just a hose.
 
Link to your original thread. Maybe a mod can combine them.

forum.ih8mud.com

Help with heater hose!

All, I have spent the last 90 mins searching to understand the heater hose plumbing for adding a heater to my 77 fj40 with a 2f. The lower heater hose routing seems straightforward(for the return, right?), but I can’t find a consistent answer on how to feed the heater with warm coolant from...
forum.ih8mud.com forum.ih8mud.com
 
Chicagomax said:
Sorry- can you expand on that? The hose going into the shiny new fitting connects to the heater. The other hoses connect to the air filter housing and the other goes below the carb…
Click to expand...
Drain the coolant and pull that new fitting out and look down in the hole. The water passage in the head right there is very shallow. I think he’s saying if you poked through the casting, that’s right above the intake port and the coolant will just be free flowing straight into the intake/cylinder. The hoses don’t look wrong from those pics so unfortunately, drilling through the water jacket would be where I’d be leaning right now.
 
Skreddy said:
Drain the coolant and pull that new fitting out and look down in the hole. The water passage in the head right there is very shallow. I think he’s saying if you poked through the casting, that’s right above the intake port and the coolant will just be free flowing straight into the intake/cylinder. The hoses don’t look wrong from those pics so unfortunately, drilling through the water jacket would be where I’d be leaning right now.
Click to expand...
Ugh- yeah: if the passage is supposed to be shallow, I can confirm mine is not. So if I drilled through, that’s a new head, right? This would definitely be new territory for my technical (in)capabilities, so I’ll need to do some research and likely source the parts but farm this one out, unless its definitely diy-friendly….
 
Sorry to hear about the leak. I would suggest get a oem manual. Once you go through manual you will noticed it's pretty straight forward. Pretty easy to take apart. Get sandwich bags and and sharpie and start labeling everything pay attention on the length of the bolts removed. Take a lot of pics. The hardest part is making sure Make sure you install the head gasket correctly. So make sure you take pic of the original gasket position before you replace it with the new one. Certain auto parts stores can lend or rent you a torque wrench. The other speed bump is aligning the vavles but with the oem manual should be easy to do.....and you alway have Mud's help.
 
Last edited:
Chicagomax said:
Ugh- yeah: if the passage is supposed to be shallow, I can confirm mine is not. So if I drilled through, that’s a new head, right? This would definitely be new territory for my technical (in)capabilities, so I’ll need to do some research and likely source the parts but farm this one out, unless its definitely diy-friendly….
Click to expand...
The engine head & block are cast iron, which is not easy to drill. If you did, you must have some really awesome drill bits.

Don’t crank the motor anymore, that can only compound problems. As stated, drain everything, pull that fitting and the intake & exhaust manifolds and have a look in there. If you drilled it you may be able to repair it.
 
If the cylinders were full of water and you cranked it over, there's maybe/probably bottom end damage too. Harder to diagnose that without disassembling the whole thing. Might be able to see if the rods are bent if you drop the oil pan? If it is just replacing the head, that's not too difficult. Find a donor and have a machine shop do a valve job. Maybe get your manifolds machined while they're off. Then it's just replacing a bunch of gaskets and torquing everything down.

We all make mistakes. Once you get it all back together and running you will be that much more attached and have a better understanding of how it works. Half the joy of owning an old cruiser is working on it. As long as your wife doesn't mind you spending all the money doing it.😉
 
I'm just going to go out on a limb here. If you have water in all your cylinders after just drilling that hole you have bigger issues. You drilled into the intake runner. you can pull the fitting you just put in and take a picture inside the hole. If you have an iphone you can use the magnifier in settings and get a good closeup. Most likely you drilled into the intake. If so you are screwed. If you got a bunch of shavings in it. They are all in number 6 piston. Yank the head and take it to a machine shop and get all those shavings out of #6 bore with a vacuum and make sure they didn't score the walls. Depending on how big that hole it they might be able to fix it but I doubt it. You will need a new head. Before you do that with the head off you can rotate each cylinder to the top and with a real straight edge see if there is any variance. If so the motor will need new connecting rods.

If you drilled say more than a 1/4 of an inch past the top of the block you have screwed up. If that bit went down into a cavity that is over an inch deep you have messed up good. But hey we all make mistakes. We are human. I have found those plugs in other SA cruisers and they are a bitch to get out.
 
Trollhole said:
I'm just going to go out on a limb here. If you have water in all your cylinders after just drilling that hole you have bigger issues. You drilled into the intake runner. you can pull the fitting you just put in and take a picture inside the hole. If you have an iphone you can use the magnifier in settings and get a good closeup. Most likely you drilled into the intake. If so you are screwed. If you got a bunch of shavings in it. They are all in number 6 piston. Yank the head and take it to a machine shop and get all those shavings out of #6 bore with a vacuum and make sure they didn't score the walls. Depending on how big that hole it they might be able to fix it but I doubt it. You will need a new head. Before you do that with the head off you can rotate each cylinder to the top and with a real straight edge see if there is any variance. If so the motor will need new connecting rods.

If you drilled say more than a 1/4 of an inch past the top of the block you have screwed up. If that bit went down into a cavity that is over an inch deep you have messed up good. But hey we all make mistakes. We are human. I have found those plugs in other SA cruisers and they are a bitch to get out.
Click to expand...
Brutally honest but it cuts to the issue.
 
Don't get discouraged, hopefully there's a silver lining, take it apart and do inspection. Let us know what you find.
 
Thanks all for the comments, suggestions, advice. I had to take the last 36 hours to step away as honestly it made me a bit sick to think about, but now I’m back and after considering taking it to a shop to fix, but like @MDH33 said, I’m looking at this as a leaning and joint afterward it will increase my connection/appreciation with the machine and will be very educational (and hopefully enjoyable)! When I start taking things apart to assess the damage, I’ll take pictures and document along the way so folks can follow along (and almost definitely help me again if I run into issues!).

Stay tuned,
Max
 
Okay all,

Finally had the time and guts to dive back in this afternoon, and after about 4 hours I have the carburetor off(bungied to the side), intake and exhaust manifolds off (much easier than I expected), power steering pump assembly off, and 14/15 head bolts off(see pictures below for progress).

Question: how do I get to the 15th head bolt off that’s under the rocker assembly to get it off? And it looks like in my prior searches I don’t have to undo any of the rocker assembly to remove the head(assume push rods just fall away when you pull the head off?), but want to confirm that’s true.

Lastly- i read somewhere the water pump needs to be removed, but it doesnt look like it connects to the head?

Thanks in advance for the help- once I have this off I’ll take it to a welder and see if they can repair, otherwise I’ll be in the market for a new head…

Max
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