Well, I'll never do that again!

[The Heretic]

After washing down the engine compartment of my car it took two full days for the engine to dry out enough for it to start.

I've never had an engine take that long to recover from being doused with water. I also never found the component that was drowned - it wasn't the distributor, and nothing else was obvious.

But at least it starts and runs now.

 

[Guest]

 

[His_kitty]

After washing down the engine compartment of my car it took two full days for the engine to dry out enough for it to start.

I've never had an engine take that long to recover from being doused with water. I also never found the component that was drowned - it wasn't the distributor, and nothing else was obvious.

But at least it starts and runs now.

heh


I'll learn from your mistake.


Not that I think I'd ever do that.. because I rarely wash the outside of my Blazer.. yeah I'm a slob.

 

[Guest]

I know fuck all about cars.

Does this make me a girl?

 

[Azwed]

What kind of car was it STG??

 

[The Heretic]

Re: Re: Well, I'll never do that again!

I'll learn from your mistake.


Not that I think I'd ever do that.. because I rarely wash the outside of my Blazer.. yeah I'm a slob.

Well, it wasn't that much of a mistake; I have doused hundreds of IC engines, including high pressure steam cleaning them, and they usually recover fairly quickly, especially if it is dry and warm out.

As a general rule I don't reply to trolls, but this time I just had to see what His Schit had to say:

"starter, coil, plugs, LT leads, battery connection,Alternator

in short - you are a fucking twat"

Well, Schitface, let's go over your "suggestions":

1) Starter. Bear in mind that I said the engine wouldn't start, not that it wouldn't turn over. The engine turned over just fine, so no prob with the starter.
2) Coil. The coil on this car is inside the distributor and showed no evidence of moisture.
3) Plugs. Plug leads may get wet and cause problems (not the problem here), but plugs themselves don't have problems with getting wet.
4) LT leads. Assuming you mean the 12 volt side of the ignition, again, nothing readily apparent there.
5) Battery connection. If the engine is turning over then the battery and its connections must be okay.
6) The alternator has nothing to do with most cars starting. You can usually completely disconnect it and the car will still start fine, it just won't charge the battery and you may damage the alternator.

In short - you are a fucking twat who doesn't know shit about anything.

Now I am putting you back on ignore.

 

[The Heretic]

What kind of car was it STG??

It is a Toyota Tercel. IT is a beater that I drive around when I am not riding my bike. I don't drive it much, but I am going into Seattle today to handle a stock sale and I didn't want to show up at the trust company in my grubby riding clothes.

 

[Guest]

 

[His_kitty]

I know fuck all about cars.

Does this make me a girl?

Wanna have a sleep over and do each others hair?




Heretic, I know that they can be sprayed down, but I wouldn't dare do that to mine because if something could go wrong.. it would.

 

[bitterstorm]

I HATE being helpfull

It is a Toyota Tercel. IT is a beater that I drive around when I am not riding my bike. I don't drive it much, but I am going into Seattle today to handle a stock sale and I didn't want to show up at the trust company in my grubby riding clothes.

Does it have a hot throbing little

ELECTRIC fuel pump,

Just a thought, if it has corroded leads, it may not be spurting properly.

 

[The Heretic]

Re: I HATE being helpfull

Does it have a hot throbing little

ELECTRIC fuel pump,

Just a thought, if it has corroded leads, it may not be spurting properly.

Yes, it has an electric fuel pump, but that fuel pump is in the fuel tank at the other end of the car. Plus, the carb was getting fuel, I just wasn't getting spark. I knew it was because I had doused the car and that somewhere some connection or component had gotten wet and therefore wasn't working the way it should, but when it is wet and cold out I am lazy and I am not going to pull apart every connection and trace down every wiring harness. At best I will get out the hair drier and start drying it out. But I had until today to wait for it to dry out on its own - I have just never seen a vehicle take that long to dry out.

Like I said I have washed down a lot of engines and compartments (being a mechanic in a past life), and I have also driven/ridden a lot of vehicles off-road and gone through water crossings. Usually within a few minutes the vehicle will restart - I've never had one take two days before, not even the time I got stuck on a mountain in a snowstorm and had water in the fuel line which froze (I rigged up a gravity feed fuel container from the windshield washer bottle, and drove the truck down the mountain, stopping to refill the bottle every few miles, until I got down below the snow line and the fuel line defrosted).

 

[Azwed]

I can't think of anything specific about tercels that might cause that problem when all the normal parts of the ignition seem dry.

Probably some module or relay got a little bit of mostiure in it and was causing the computer to have issues.

I once had this guy in my shop with an old Pontiac Grand Am that would not start. All the usual suspects had been checked out and the motor would still not start. It would turn over fine but I could not get any cylinders to fire.

I am leaning over the engine looking back by the firewall to see if any wires look loose or corroded and I notice one little module that is a little crooked in its bracket. I hate when things are not in their right place on vehicles and so I wiggled it till the module locked back down into the bracket. Guess what happend the next time I tried to start the car? Thats right fired up just fine and idled nice and smooth.

 

[Todd-'o'-Vision]

The true Canuck handy man weapon for drowned motors


WD40 spray everything down with it, pulls moisture out of everything

 

[The Heretic]

I can't think of anything specific about tercels that might cause that problem when all the normal parts of the ignition seem dry.

Probably some module or relay got a little bit of mostiure in it and was causing the computer to have issues.

Yep, that is one of the shortcomings of electronic ignition systems; when they work they work really well, when they don't work they usually don't work at all and are very hard to diagnose. I had an SUV once that would break something electronic about once a year - usually something costing about $500 in labor (diagnosis) and parts. One time it broke and it took the Ford dealership shop two weeks to figure it out, and when they went to bring it around to me it didn't run and they had to keep it another two weeks to fix it.

When we had electromechanical systems they would fuckup and require tweaking more often - but usually they would not fail completely and could be fixed by the backyard mechanic in the field. Still, overall, the more modern systems are more reliable.

 

[Azwed]

SNIP


Ford

SNIP

Ahh that explains everything.


I have a Tech II that I can use to diagnose OBDII cars, 1997 and up, at my shop but does not do much good for me since my bonne is an 89 and the maxima is a 95.

You can use a paper clip to trip the diagnostic port on most OBDI cars and then the check engine light will flash the code to you. Still a real pain in the ass to do though and you really need an assistant to either write down how many times the light flashes or to hold the paper clip.