I killed mine today. Dealer to call with damage assessment monday
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I killed mine today. Dealer to call with damage assessment monday
.....need details.... asap
Yes, we went wheeling today, 4 wranglers, an XJ, and myself. The day was going great, I silenced the critics early conquering the first gnarly hill while 2 YJs bailed out and a TJ tried and failed. Also, got in and out of a ravine that something the size of an XK had no business in. Then, I followed the XJ (lifted 6" on 33s) through(mostly) a river crossing..... I went in about 30', felt the current push me just a bit so I goosed it, while in 4 LO. The XK sprang to life lurched forward and suddenly died. I made the mistake of immediately trying to start it and got nothing. Stuck for about 5 minutes in moving water 3" higher than the chrome trim on the doors while said XJ found his recovery strap and extracted me. Water inside the XK reached the bottom of the brake pedal. Two hours of airing out the soaked air filter and intake and pulling plugs (that were dry). Only to try to start it again and get nothing but a click from the starter before wafts of smoke started rolling up the left side of block. Trailside diagnosis: Fried the starter while in the water (it was submerged). Got towed 7 miles back to pavement, where I was towed another 26 miles by wrecker to the nearest dealer two hours later. Upon arrival at dealer, oil was pouring out of my 4xGuard belly guard. There was no oil leaking alongside the river, or on the road prior to towing, or even when winched onto the flatbed. This changes trailside diagnosis drastically :( Pics to follow as soon as they are done uploading to smugmug.
Really sorry to hear that man. Hopefully it's just disconnected pipe or something easily resolved. Oil typically just doesn't fall out, even during flooding. I can't think of any that would cause a car to dump oil other than over heating, or overfilling.
Ouch...
Take it from someones who's "been there, done that"... i know what you're going through. It sucks. BUT, it makes for good stories later.
hopefully it's not something major..... but if it is, i guarantee it makes for a great story in a few years.
It's been quite some time since i've done this:
https://theultimatejeep.com/notfound.png
https://theultimatejeep.com/notfound.png
https://theultimatejeep.com/notfound.png
Out of the ravine, for scale, a wrangler:
https://theultimatejeep.com/notfound.png
Me following:
https://theultimatejeep.com/notfound.png
https://theultimatejeep.com/notfound.png
https://theultimatejeep.com/notfound.png
https://theultimatejeep.com/notfound.png
Minor scratches:
https://theultimatejeep.com/notfound.png
Pushing too much water:
https://theultimatejeep.com/notfound.png
Dead in the water
https://theultimatejeep.com/notfound.png
The name on the door says it all because, it sure was.
https://theultimatejeep.com/notfound.png
You shouldn't have followed..
Good luck man..
Where you were stopped in the creek in the stuck picture it doesn't look all that deep.
unfortunately the stock air intake location and design is a funnel for water to be sucked up by our jeeps and for this reason I avoid water like its the devil. I hope it's something easy and cheap for you man but sometimes you just have to say no I'll skip this one.
Dealership called today, motor is hydrolocked. Getting insurance company involved to get a claim going. I was told that once it's authorized, it'll take 2-3 days to put it back together again.
Dang I feel for ya. I did the same thing to mine after only having it a month. On a whim, I called my insurance agent and explained exactly how it happened.... my comprehensive coverage paid the whole thing! grant total - 6300 and change. Got the Airflow snorkel sitting in the garage. It's going on before ANY future water crossing!
Good luck with the claim and go by a snorkel :)
So insurance companies may actually cover us for stuff like this?? hmmm...
I wouldnt ever want to make a habit out of hydrolocking a motor....wait.... i did... lol i hydrolocked my explorer 3 times before i built the snorkel!! (but i got it running again, all 3 times... it blew up a few months later)
I meant make a habit of making insurance claims SILLY :) in NC $1800 or less they just pay for no big deal but one dollar over then they assign you points and your rates will go up with state farm anyway.
I have done the same thing & my insurance replaced mine as well. I don't want a snorkel but I do like playing in the water, so I have to fab up something to do both. Sorry to hear & hope your insurance does cover it & get your rig back soon, mine took a month to get it back.
dude I hate that your rig got hydrolocked. I can only imagine how deep the water was to get water up to your pedals.
I had some splash over into my rig, and that s*** seemed deep! Good luck with the rebuild or new engine
Great story and pic though!
For those that went through this and got the repair/rebuild/replacement motor, how many could tell a difference in power from the new motor versus yours pre damage?
Depends on how many miles you have and how well you took care of it. If it was a well taken care of engine, there wont really be a drastic difference.
Depending on the situation, the water doesn't have to be that deep. Here is a buddy locking his up. He has a K&N intake installed and he cut out the fender liner below it to allow more air to get to the filter. It also allowed water to be kicked up right to the filter. Locked up tight. Luckily we were able to pull all the plugs and turn it over and shot a bunch of water out of the cylinders. He was lucky it just shut off and it wouldnt turn over at all. If it turned over with all that water in it , it probabably would have bent some rods at the very least. You can see the water never even got over the foglights, far below the factory air inlet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb2XZ...ature=youtu.be
The K&N CAI is what did mine in as well, it wasn't from the fenders liners being cut up, but it was water coming thru the front. I had 20k on the clock when I blew mine, and my replacement was a reman. I can't really tell any difference.
the stock intake box is set up pretty well to prevent hydrolocking.... as long as you leave that flap on the front which would deflect that wave of water away from the inlet. I'm not a huge fan of big conical filters for these types of rigs.... they really don't help much in terms of performance (unless the engine is running above 5000 rpms constantly. ... which we don't do with our kind of offroading) and they're more likely to ingest water.
So, the word so far is... motor sucked up water, and blew the rear main. The block is junk and will have to be replaced. Sounds like insurance is going to cover it :D Better news is (so far) the insurance company hasn't been able to find a used Hemi with less milage than mine, so they'll be ordering a new long block from Chrysler to replace it with. Seats and carpet and padding have been removed to dry out. I'll be avoiding any future water crossings (at least until the snorkel is in place)
Glad to hear its all working out!!
Just curious..... Did the service manager look at you funny when you brought it in? Lol I bet they don't get too many commanders like that!
Latest info: Motor was full of water, blew the rear main. Block is junk and will have to be replaced. Looks like insurance is going to cover it :D Better news it they've been unable to locate a used motor with fewer miles than mine so they'll be ordering a long block from Chrysler. Seats and carpet and padding have been removed to dry out. I'll be avoiding any future water crossings (at least until the snorkel is in place)
Didn't see the first one posted.. sorry
So what your saying is.... you've got a snorkel on order? J/k Well hopefully it won't take them too long to finish your fix and get you back in your XK. Good Luck.
It's over at Airpark Chrysler Jeep in north Scottsdale. It drowned in the Verde River by Bartlett Lake. Airpark was the closest dealer. I usually take it to Avondale for it's service but, it would've been $300 extra in towing to get there.
Wow! That sucks! (No pun intended)
The photo where your grill is under is what did it. Moving too fast creates a wave front even in 18" deep water, and of course, the intake is right behind the grill on the passenger side. Slurp!
After 30+ years of 4x4'ing, I know that you get pretty much ONE (single, uno, ein) chance when going too deep. The air gets blocked off and the engine stalls out pretty fast, and if it's not doing red-line, the water won't get that far. That's the time to STOP EVERYTHING and get rid of the water - the first time it stalls. And NEVER try to restart until it's dealt with. In the Commander's stock air cleaner housing, there's a small drain hole in the bottom of the bucket. Just getting pulled out of the water and waiting for 60 or 90 seconds should clear the bucket, and in the meantime, you pull the lid and element to check it and/or replace the wet element. If you even so much as see ANY water up in the intake piping, then it's time for a spark plug pull.
I'm sure you know now that your too-soon restart moved a slug of water up the intake piping and into the engine. It doesn't take much water either, people think it takes gallons, it doesn't. Water does not compress, not even a little bit, and the clearances are pretty small in the combustion chamber space when the piston's at TDC. Half a coffee cup worth will break a rod because the piston just ends up with no place to go. Even if a piston's stroke gets stopped only a few thousandths of an inch short, it's still a disaster. A big slug of water (maybe in several cylinders) will try to push the crankshaft down and away from the block mountings, (assuming the rods don't give out first) and that sounds like what happened here.
As for insurance, isn't having insurance for recovering from doing something stupid? :D You know, you leave boiling oil on the stove and go to the store, and the burning kitchen takes the rest of the house with it? Texting while driving and run a light? Hydrolocking your engine? That's what those endless premiums payments are for. Of course, you don't want to make a habit of it. :p
Adondo, you're exactly right. Every bit of what you said happened. Sucked water, tried to restart too soon, water in the throttle body, I "knew" it doesn't take much to kill an engine with water, it's been confirmed for sure through this experience.
Worse news, insurance called me today and decided thay they are going to total the truck rather than risk any future problems from this incident. So RIP my awesome silver XK. :( Time to get some solid numbers from the insurance and start shopping for another ride. Dammit. I love that Jeep.
That's to bad man sorry to hear that. What are you looking at getting?