Water In Cylinder

[CDAHDAH]

Hey Guys, I'm in a pretty bad situation and I'm hoping its not as bad as I think it is.

I've been out of town the past 4 months, and I'm a little late on winterizing my boat. I charged the batteries and couldn't get the engine to start. The carb was as dry as can be, and wouldn't deposit gas. The engine wouldn't turn over and would barely crank. The starter seemed fine, but just wouldn't turn the engine over. I did take all the spark plugs out and found water pouring out of cylinders #6 and #1. I left the plugs out and cranked the engine, and it turned over fine with all the plugs out. Water did SHOOT out from the cylinders and I kept cranking the engine until water stopped spraying out.

I cleaned the spark plugs, even though they looked like they were in bad rusty shape, and tried to start the engine. The engine turned fine, gas was coming out of the carb like normal but the engine wouldn't start, so I took some of the plugs out again and didn't find water back in there. Which is good.


Do you guys think that the engine water might have frozen and cracked or damaged anything internally for there to be water in my cylinder heads? Since the water has been sitting in the cylinder for God knows how long (probably about 2 months), does this mean that my cylinder heads and/walls need an overhaul/rebuild??

I'm gonna buy new spark plugs tonight and give it a try again tomorrow morning with the new plugs, I'm praying that its just plugs gone bad.

[michael hunter]

Sorry to here about your problem. If your engine had water in it and froze the engine is probubly junk along with the exhaust manifolds.

[docdrs]

is there any water in your oil? if its milky, thats not good......ever heard of michigan motorz? could be just a cracked intake mani....all depends how cold it got

[CDAHDAH]

I'll look into Michigan Motorz. I haven't found water to be in the oil, yet. Any ideas or tips on what to do to diagnose it without taking it all apart?

[jzelt]

Do you have spark at the plug? I test by putting a plug in the wire and have someone turn over the motor while holding the plug to the block and watching to see if there is any. This should rule out electrical vs compression.

[87SunSportMikeyD]

Also it might not start well due to the cold temps. I was unable to get my boat started once the temps dropped. I just poured the antifreeze into the raw water intake until it ran out the exhaust outlets. It took 4.5 gal. Do that for sure even if you aren't able to start the boat. Where have the lowest temps been like there?

[86Pirata454]

doesnt sound good. is it a 454 or a 351? might want to do a compression test and if it starts a cylinder balance test

[dshaff24]

Sorry to hear this, Think of it like this! Water just don't get in your cylinder with out a cylinder wall of the block cracked from it being frozen! I hope this isn't the case but Water just don't get into the motor unless you have the motor cover off and ran gets down in the carb!

[CDAHDAH]

Great advice guys, so far no spark on the spark plugs, but I'm in the process of swapping them out with new ones (just incase the sitting water in the cylinder rusted out the tips of the plugs).

The coldest it got here was about 29-30, for about 12 hours or so. I'm not too convinced that this is because of the freeze, but who knows.

I did have issues "RESTARTING" the boat when it was warm this past boating season. It would start up just fine when the engine was cold, but not so great when it was warm. I'm thinking there was a previous leak in the cylinder/block before. I'm debating this because when we would run the boat on the lake and kill it to swim, I feel that water somehow found its way up to the cylinders and prevented an easy restart when the engine was warm.

Would the next step from now be to take the heads off? Has anyone ever taken the heads off it? It's actually a GM 350 engine in this Supra. I guess in 84 they had a special edition 350 instead of the 351 or 454 (so i'm told anyway).


MikeyD- Mikey, when I try to start the engine and it turns, water doesn't actually go thru the system without it starting. I can't get antifreeze in the block without it starting. Does it sound like I have an issue?

[docdrs]

It won't hurt to start the engine without water in it just don't let it run too long as you will toast the impeller. maybe its a leaking gasket head, intake or exhaust mani if your lucky. you can pressure test the block cooling system to see if it holds pressure, it will eliminate a few things. was the crank oil milky at all? i wouldn't think 30 degrees for 12 hours would crack anything