Water meets motor

Stoph345 · May 3, 2018

Well i made a stupid decision to go mudding last night in my 04 ranger and got apparently too deep into a puddle. We made it out with eaze under its own power but it instantly started to misfire badly and knock with the dummy light flashing. We let it sit for a goot 10 minutes to let it dry a little and tried her again and she started right up had a few misses but then ran pretty close to normal. Dummy light was gone but the terrible knock was still there. We checked the airbox and there was some water that sprayed in but it didnt seem to bring too much if any through the filter. Could i have bent a rod? What do i do? I am planning on pulling the plugs and turning it over to get any extra water out if some got in. I read some about cracking the manifold but would that make a really loud knock?

Please help as this is my daily driver, anything is appreciated. Thank you

Stoph345 · May 3, 2018

Note: after the puddle i shut it off under its own power. Once i saw the dummy light and heard the knock i turned the key. The truck did not seem to lose power until after the puddle

RonD · May 3, 2018

Hydro-lock would be a good guess

Compression test with all spark plugs removed would be next
3.0l runs 9.3:1 ratio so you would expect 165psi at sea level to 2,000ft elevation, from each cylinder
If connecting rod did get damaged with hydro-lock then you will see lower compression on that cylinder

Connecting rod knock will go away or drop way down in noise level if that cylinder doesn't fire
So you can disable spark or fuel injector on each cylinder while idling to see if knock goes away.

For water or mud crossings you should have an electric cooling fan that you can shut off from inside the cab, mechanical fans spray water and mud all over the engine bay, causing all sorts issues.

adsm08 · May 3, 2018

Which light came on?

Ranger850 · May 3, 2018

adsm08 said:
Which light came on?

He said Dummy Light, that must be the "Check Engine" Light, right?

adsm08 · May 3, 2018

Ranger850 said:
He said Dummy Light, that must be the "Check Engine" Light, right?

Can't be, the CEL isn't a dummy light. It only comes on when the computer has specific information about an issue.

rusty ol ranger · May 3, 2018

If you didnt suck enough water in to kill it dead, you didnt hydrolock it. If you nosedived it then it quit, then id be saiing bent rod.

My guess is you got something electronic wet and fried it. If the CE is blinking that indicates missfire. A couple dead cylinders can make some noise.

delaware74b · May 4, 2018

Pull the coilpack and look for cracks in the epoxy. I had the same thing happen about 3 years ago. It also caused multiple misfires on humid days until I replaced the coilpack.

Stoph345 · May 8, 2018

So now that its been a few days i have driven the truck to where i am going to work on it. When the motor warms up the knock nearly dissapears at idle. You can barely hear it on top of the motor. Underneath it sounds like someone is hitting the oil pan with a hammer. I did get 2 misfire codes (check engine light/dummy light) and also the MAF Sensor. The misfires were 1&6. Is there anything i can do or is starting over with a “new” motor my best bet?

Stoph345 · May 8, 2018

Also. The truck doesnt seem to misfire anymore. Which i believe is due to the water being all out of the motor and off of the plugs. It seems to have full power.

RonD · May 8, 2018

Cold start engine so it has the knock
Unplug 1 spark plug wire at a time
If knock noise lessens when a spark plug is off then its a Rod knock, in that cylinder

Hydro lock can stop an engine dead in its spin, but if its just a little water/fluid then connecting rod and/or piston bends and engine continues to run with that damage.
People often do that kind of damage when trying to clean carbon out of the cylinders by adding Seafoam or similar cleaner to the intake while engine is running, an expensive "oops" if too much is added at one time
I guess for the semantics this wouldn't be hydro "lock" since engine did stop, but hydro damage was done none the less

Stoph345 · May 10, 2018

RonD said:
Cold start engine so it has the knock
Unplug 1 spark plug wire at a time
If knock noise lessens when a spark plug is off then its a Rod knock, in that cylinder

Hydro lock can stop an engine dead in its spin, but if its just a little water/fluid then connecting rod and/or piston bends and engine continues to run with that damage.
People often do that kind of damage when trying to clean carbon out of the cylinders by adding Seafoam or similar cleaner to the intake while engine is running, an expensive "oops" if too much is added at one time
I guess for the semantics this wouldn't be hydro "lock" since engine did stop, but hydro damage was done none the less

I did this the day after all of this happened. didnt see any effect in noise difference. the motor did NOT die. i actually did this to a grand am v6 in a flooded street but that motor completely locked. All i did on that was pulled the plugs and hit the starter to get as much water out as possible, put the plugs back in and she purred again. i dont know what else this could be... any other suggestions

Water meets motor

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