milkshake anyone?

[Loanranger]

Well, I'm hoping for the best. Today while out wheeling, I got into a pretty deep mudhole, got stuck because I only had 3 wheel drive (broken birf) and had to be winched out backwards.

The exhaust was submerged, so I kept if just off of idle the entire time, and it was running fine. I get out of the mudhole, and on dry ground and it dies. It runs, just won't idle. So I start it back up and try to clear it out, thinking I might have gotten mud in the tailpipe or something, and it's smoking. I thought it was just steam, but after a minute it dawns on me, the smoke is a little blue, and smells of burning oil. Well, after getting back to the trailer and loaded up, I notice some oil on my front leaf, and after checking it out, find that the pcv valve has blown out of the hose, and the oil is leaking from there. Next thing I do is pull the dipstick, and find milkshake. Look in the radiator and it's clean and green. At no time was the water any further up the motor than say just above the pan, possibly up to the fuel pump block off.

So basically what I'm wondering, (or basically just want some more opinions on), is do you think it was just the hot motor being partially submerged, and sucking in water, or do you think that the exhaust being under water may have caused too much backpressure and blown a headgasket, but just water into the oil, not the other way around? I'm leaning more towards the first option, because I know the fuel pump block off plate seeps a little, and if I remember right, it had a small pan leak too.

Thanks in advance for your 2 cents.

 

[TireIron]

it sounds like it may have just filled with water somehow and being overfilled caused it to build pressure and start pissing the oil out everywhere. Best thing I'd say is to drain it quickly and just fill it with some cheap oil and start it up to see whats what. If it clears out and runs good then I would say theres no harm done, just run the fresh oil in it for 10-20 minutes and then drain it and fill it again to be sure and get out as much water as you can so nothing rusts or seizes up.

 

[Loanranger]

Well, I tore into it tonight, and it looks like it just sucked some water in, not a blown headgasket. The not idling thing was the pcv had blown out from too much liquid in the crankcase. I drained 2 gallons of "oil" out of it, poured 3 quarts straight through with the plug and filter out, then put the plug back in, and put a new filter on. Filled it with 4 quarts, and ran it for about 20 minutes, and it wasn't smoking or making any wierd noises, so I drained it again. It still isn't quite flushed yet, so I'm going to do one more oil and filter change tomorrow, drain it and refill, change the filter. Looks like it will be all good. I had something similar happen a while back in the ranger, but it was a cracked heater hose, and it just so happened that the oil cap wasn't on straight (damn clicking oil caps, it clicked so I thought it was tight, but it wasn't seated properly) well, the broken hose just so happened to spray right at the cap, and I got a similar milkshake, but it wasn't nearly this bad. I just did the same thing, poured a few quarts straight through, filled and ran it, then drained and filled it, and it was good as new. This was about 6 months ago, and I haven't had any problems with it.

Here's a pic of what the "oil" looked like after the first draining.

 

[Bryan22]

i dunno how deep u got but my buddy got his jeep stuck in a river kinda and kept it running till he got out, his was a carb. anywho his gas tank had a bunch of nasty water in it, now it will hardly idle, so make sure ur fuel is clean before u start driving it again.

 

[Loanranger]

i dunno how deep u got but my buddy got his jeep stuck in a river kinda and kept it running till he got out, his was a carb. anywho his gas tank had a bunch of nasty water in it, and fucked everything up, so make sure ur fuel is clean before u start driving it again.

The first picture is as deep as it got. And I've got a fuel cell in the back of the tub, so it was high and dry the whole time. Thanks for the suggestion though.

 

[TireIron]

glad to hear that it had just filled up on you

 

[Loanranger]

glad to hear that it had just filled up on you

Yup, and I'm taking a few precautions so it doesn't happen again.
I pulled the pan last night, and except for a small amount of the goo in the bottom of the pan, everything looked great. There was no residue or film like I thought there would be, the oil that was on everything was the new stuff. I also looked into the cylinders with a flashlight, and the walls look perfect, so worse case I guess is the rings and bearings don't last till 100k miles, but I'm sure I'll have something else transplanted by then. I'm thinking about the 2.9 out of my dad's ranger, I've already talked him into a v8 swap, I just have to round up one.