BlueShadow

Hey guys,

Both of my CRX's got caught in the NorCal flood water this past weekend. My white CRX I dont really care about, but my red one with the built and sleeved B18C is what I'm trying to save. The water got as high as 25-28" around my cars. That means the water went all the way up to the middle bolt of my cam gear. I dont know yet if water got into the motor, but if it did it could do a lot of damage if I try to start it up. I'm more worried about all the dirt and sediment that will be left over once it's been sitting for a while. The water was all brown and muddy and it left a lot of leftover mud in the parking area outside, so I'd imagine the same will happen inside the motor if water got inside it.

Today I'm gonna start salvaging what I can off of the car, but I wanted to know what I should do the the motor first. In about a week I'm going on a 4 month long trip so I'm moving everything out of my apartment and putting it in storage. Now if the motor is dirty on the inside I want to clean it out as best as I can before it goes into storage.

For the head I was thinking about leaving the valvetrain intact and removing the IM and all sensors and either dunking the head in a container full of cleaning solution or something else. For the block I was gonna disassemble it and just remove all the piston rings and bearings. But what should I use to the parts? can I just use a lot of hot water and chlorine solution to rinse off the grime? what if I hit it with a pressure washer? let me know what kinds of things I can use to clean the head off with and what I can use afterwards to help keep it from rusting the 4-5 months it is in storage. I'm gonna see if I can find a container big engouh to submerge the block and head into, but right now I'm just looking for a few quick homemade/DIY remedies.

If I'm lucky I wont have to take apart the block. But if I do I'll have to decide if I want to put the block and head in storage or if I should send it off to earl and have him take care of it while I'm away.


let me know what you guys think
TIA

BlueShadow

shat, I meat to post this in the FI forum, if a mod reads this post please move it into the Forced Induction Forum

thanks

I Want An Si

i would say take off the oil pan and valve cover to let all the water out(i doubt grime got in to it, probably just water, cause really how is pieces of dirt going to get in?)

litterbox

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by I Want An Si &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i would say take off the oil pan and valve cover to let all the water out(i doubt grime got in to it, probably just water, cause really how is pieces of dirt going to get in?)

</TD></TR></TABLE>lol

I'd seriously take everything apart and clean and dry. I mean you have all winter right? I'm not sure what would be best to clean it. Brake cleaner?

Yeah, you'll get your answer in FI, not here, lol.

BlueShadow

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by I Want An Si &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i would say take off the oil pan and valve cover to let all the water out(i doubt grime got in to it, probably just water, cause really how is pieces of dirt going to get in?)

</TD></TR></TABLE>

Keep in mind the water was all the way up to the middle part of the cam gear, that was no exageration. The water completely submerged my header. The water could have and probably did make its way into the combustion chamber via the exhaust system, up through the header and then down through the exhaust valves. The water was muddy as ****, and it was totally brown. It wasn't clear or anything with bits of dirt /mud floating through it, it was completely brown. That means the dirt particles were very very small. I'm not gonna take the chance with a block and head that I spent $6000-$7500 to build.

BlueShadow

bump

93preludes

carb cleaner should do the trick on the bottom end, just use some bounty towels and you should be ok, get everything cleaned and dried.

i'd worry more about the head if you're not planning on taking it apart, just use your best judgement on it man...

the best advice your going to get is to be thorough and patient, get everything dried and cleaned and reassemble.

I am sorry that this happened to you :-/ and good luck...

edit: i meant carb cleaner on the disassembled parts, i thought that was a given but just to be clear... teardown, clean, reassemble as stated


Modified by 93preludes at 1:05 PM 1/5/2006


Modified by 93preludes at 1:08 PM 1/5/2006

a1320addict

iTrader: (1)

sorry to hear about the car

if you werent driving the car, then the real only forseeable (sp?) way water could have gotten anywhere would be a) through the compressor b) possibly the oil filter?

like someone suggested, i would take off the valve cover and oil pan, and see if theres any sign of anything of the sort.

good luck

BlueShadow

Forgot to mention that my turbo stuff had not been installed yet. So the only way for water to have goten in the motor was through the stock intake box/TB, but the water didn't get as high as the TB. So that leaves the exhaust ports, and any other small hole that I am not thinking of. The water didn't get as high as the valve cover to head mating surface, but there are the 2 camshaft holes, 1 dizzy hole and the 1 cam plug hole next to the dizzy.

If the contamination isn't too bad I'll just use some carb cleaner. My main goal right now is to clean off any major contamination and to prevent any surface rust from forming since it will be going in storage for 4-5 months. Later on when I get back from my trip I can concentrate on getting it thoroughly cleaned and inspected.

EDIT: I dont want to use CARB cleaner to get only parts of the block cleaned only to come back a few months later and have a spot of mud dried and solidify somewhere inside the motor and cause problems later on. I want to give it a really good cleaning and then treat it in a way that it wont rust when it's in storage.

Joseph Davis

Tear down, clean, reassemble.

A little bit of rust is going to protect things, actually, but a little bit of rust might mean you want to send things off to the machine shop to be resurfaced.

raiden571

yeah tear it down. no reason to risk destroying a motor over laziness. besides, itll give you something to do for the time being

Tactic$

yeah..... F*uck that flood. (southern oregon guy here) ruined a lot of ****.

BlueShadow

Hey guys,

I managed to get the head off and I took some pics. It looks like a little bit of water made it into the CC. I did some test where I put the piston all the way down and I would wipe the cyl walls dry. When I brought the piston back up again there would be droplets of water on the cyl walls. The walls on #2 cyl look pretty good...so good that I can still see the crosshatch on it after having about 3000-4000 miles on the motor. The walls on 1, 3 and 4 had what may have been water spots. I'll probably clean the walls up with some brake cleaner and some paper towels. But do you guys think I should use something more abrasive? like a scoth brite pad?

Also when I drained my oil it looked normal to me and I couldn't make out any sediment. Tomorrow I'm gonna drop the oilpan cause I didn't get a chance to do it today. I had a question though about my possible bent rod from me cranking the motor for 3-5 seconds with the spark plugs still installed. Is there anyway to tell besides disassembling the block if the rods got slightly bent? While bringing cylinders 1/4 to TDC and then 2/3 to TDC I did noticed that the top of the pistons were both level with the block surface. I tried to see if I felt anything weird while I turned the crank pulley with a wrench, but I didn't notice anything weird.

here are the pics:

BlueShadow

you know what I'm thinking guys? I think I'm just gonna call it quits. I calculated the amount of money I would get if I was to clean everything up and then sell it and I figured I would make $6500-$8000 if I was to sell all my stuff. On the other hand it would cost me $4000-$5000 to get back to where I was again. The cool thing is if I sell all this stuff, then that money I make can be added up with the money I make off of this trip I'm going on. I figure when I get back I'll have $15-$19K saved up, add on to that another $6.5-8K and I'm looking at a lot of money. When I get back I think I'll just sell all this stuff.

oh yah and the insurance guys said they are gonna total both of my CRXs (obviously). For my white 90 CRX which I think I paid $2000 when I bought it a few months ago they are giving me $1665, and for my red 91 crx (the project car) since I'm keeping it they are only giving me $890. I wasn't expecting to get that much, but it's good enough for me.


Modified by BlueShadow at 7:06 AM 1/6/2006

BlueShadow

hey guys,

I just wanted to share something else with your cause I thought it was pretty funny to see. I managed to pull the block out of the car today but I didn't get a chance to crack it open. Anyways, when I went to drain the oil out of the tranny I undid the drain plug, but instead of oil it was nothing but leftover flood water, hehehe. There was a lot of it too, probably 3-4 quarts of water in the tranny.

So do you guys think the tranny is still good?, hehehe. Dont answer that, I'm gonna go ahead and toss the tranny or maybe keep it so that I can practice rebuilding trannies. If I do decide to build another turbo EF I'm going to go with a cable to hydro conversion kit and a GSR tranny with Quaife LSD.

0project dc2

iTrader: (1)

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by BlueShadow &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">hey guys,

I just wanted to share something else with your cause I thought it was pretty funny to see. I managed to pull the block out of the car today but I didn't get a chance to crack it open. Anyways, when I went to drain the oil out of the tranny I undid the drain plug, but instead of oil it was nothing but leftover flood water, hehehe. There was a lot of it too, probably 3-4 quarts of water in the tranny.

So do you guys think the tranny is still good?, hehehe. Dont answer that, I'm gonna go ahead and toss the tranny or maybe keep it so that I can practice rebuilding trannies. If I do decide to build another turbo EF I'm going to go with a cable to hydro conversion kit and a GSR tranny with Quaife LSD. </TD></TR></TABLE>


i was lookin foward to your setup.

if you dont want your tranny lemme have it. my boys can us eit for spare/parts/rebuild

BlueShadow

If you really want the tranny let me know what address you want me to send it to. I cant give you any guarantees that I'll have time to send it out before I leave next week. If I am able to send it to you all I'll ask for as payment is cost of shipping. Unless of course you have somebody that lives close to me that can pick it up.

EK FLY

I DONT really think u bend a rod just bc u crank it there is no way u can bend a rod with just the force of the starter ..... if I was u i would just use lots and lots and lots of water clean everithing up or use gasoline lots and lots of gasoline with a brush clean everithing up replace all ur fuilds and give it a run

red_crx

iTrader: (2)

i feel your pain .....i was looking forward to seeing this project car finished as well

0project dc2

iTrader: (1)

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by BlueShadow &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If you really want the tranny let me know what address you want me to send it to. I cant give you any guarantees that I'll have time to send it out before I leave next week. If I am able to send it to you all I'll ask for as payment is cost of shipping. Unless of course you have somebody that lives close to me that can pick it up. </TD></TR></TABLE>

for sure man let me know i imed you to find a lil more info

BlueShadow

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by red_crx &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i feel your pain .....i was looking forward to seeing this project car finished as well</TD></TR></TABLE>

I keep going back and forth, trying to decide if I wanna sell it or if I wanna keep it. A few hours after I posted that I'll just sell everything I started thinking about keeping it. So I still dont know what I'm gonna do. If I can find a good 88-91 CRX DX then I might try to revive the project. But I'll have to do my car shopping once I get back from this trip.

RudeLude

i second J.Davis, tear the bitch down and clean it up and jput it back together...safest way to go...pulling the valvecover wont reveal water in the cylinders...oil pan might show signs, but thats also still not a guarantee. tear the thing apart, that way u can see the condition of the motor also..

BlueShadow

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by RudeLude &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i second J.Davis, tear the bitch down and clean it up and jput it back together...safest way to go...pulling the valvecover wont reveal water in the cylinders...oil pan might show signs, but thats also still not a guarantee. tear the thing apart, that way u can see the condition of the motor also..</TD></TR></TABLE>

Today is actually the day that I'm taking the block apart to see if any dirt made it in there. I already have the head out and it managed to stay pretty clean. I'm just gonna hit it with a lot of brake cleaner and then compressed air to make sure it's clean.

This will be my first time tearing down a block and it looks pretty easy. The only thing I'm unsure if is for one of the steps it says to turn the crankshaft so that the #2 an #3 crankpins are at the bottom. Then it says to remove the right side cover. What is a crankpin? what crank or piston position puts the #2/3 crankpins on the bottom? like which set of pistons will be at TDC, etc etc.

TIA

BlueShadow

Well guys I finally got the bottom end completely broken down. Upon removing the oilpan I found a little bit of leftover dirt in there along with some coolant. Cylinder walls are fine, but i'll probably have to hone it to get rid of the stains left by the dirt water/carbon. I gave the block a good cleaning both inside and out. I used about a can and a half of brake cleaner all over the inside of the bottom end and on the cylinder walls. After wiping everything down with paper towels I gave it another shot of brake cleaner and I sprayed compressed air all over the block. I sprayed the bottom end with some WD40 and I sprayed it on paper towels and wiped it all down leaving a layer of WD40 on the bottom end bearings and the cylinder walls.

However i'm a little worried that the WD40 will dry off (remember I'll be gone 4 months). Can I use motor oil to coat the cylinder walls and bearing surfaces? I was gonna get some saran wrap and completely wrap the head, block and crank. I was gonna put a lot of oil on the crank before I wrap it, but I dont know if I can use some oil on the cylinder walls. Also I thought about a DIY hone, but would it be a better idea to take it to a NAPA or Carquest and have their machine shop hone it for me?

EDIT: oh yah, if it matters the block only had about 3000 miles on it from when earl/Benson sleeved the block.

Thanks


Modified by BlueShadow at 7:34 PM 1/7/2006

earl

Nice job on the clean up. Do NOT let anyone hone those cylinder walls. If the walls are rust free, dry and clean, coat them with LOTS of oil. Manually turn the motor over so that the pistons and rings are saturated in oil. It will smoke like a ***** when you start it up in 4 months but that won't hurt anything. The more oil the better. Store it in as dry a spot as possible. Rust in the underside is not that big a deal but rust on the cylinder walls for 4 months would not be good.