Hey R3V.
Was driving to work in a thunderstorm recently and ran into some water due to a clogged storm drain and very poor visibility.
Long story short: water got in two cylinders, immediately stopping the bottom end. The top end continued to spin, shearing the timing belt.
I replaced the belt, and amazingly the car runs with no abnormal valve train noises or evidence of rocker arm/valve damage.
The issue is:
Compression across all cylinders is 110-115 and there's oil in the coolant and coolant in the oil. I was pretty sure it would have catastrophic damage (bent rod, broken rocker arm/valve/etc) but the fact that the compression is consistent (though low) leads me to think it isn't a valve train or rod/piston issue.
Compression 1 year ago was 150-160 all cylinders. Engine has probably 350k miles but ran fine and pulled to redline before all this.
Belt is in time.
I'm trying to figure out what would've happened to abruptly lower the compression in all cylinders. A broken valve/rocker arm or bent rod it seems would result in a single low number not on all cylinders. Right?
I'm fairly sure the block or head is cracked and have reached out to some shops for quotes on an engine rebuild, but the only other thing I can think of that makes sense is that the pressure of the piston hitting non-compressible water resulted in the head bolts stretching causing a leaky gasket (oil/coolant mixing) and low compression.
The car starts up without issue and runs fine, just down on power and mixing oil/coolant.
My question to the E30 masterminds of R3V:
Have you ever seen head bolts stretched by a piston compressing water? And does it make any sense for me as a last ditch effort to just crank down the head bolts and see what happens?
Also, I'm in Chattanooga TN and probably need a new engine for my car so if anyone has recs for a shop...
Was driving to work in a thunderstorm recently and ran into some water due to a clogged storm drain and very poor visibility.
Long story short: water got in two cylinders, immediately stopping the bottom end. The top end continued to spin, shearing the timing belt.
I replaced the belt, and amazingly the car runs with no abnormal valve train noises or evidence of rocker arm/valve damage.
The issue is:
Compression across all cylinders is 110-115 and there's oil in the coolant and coolant in the oil. I was pretty sure it would have catastrophic damage (bent rod, broken rocker arm/valve/etc) but the fact that the compression is consistent (though low) leads me to think it isn't a valve train or rod/piston issue.
Compression 1 year ago was 150-160 all cylinders. Engine has probably 350k miles but ran fine and pulled to redline before all this.
Belt is in time.
I'm trying to figure out what would've happened to abruptly lower the compression in all cylinders. A broken valve/rocker arm or bent rod it seems would result in a single low number not on all cylinders. Right?
I'm fairly sure the block or head is cracked and have reached out to some shops for quotes on an engine rebuild, but the only other thing I can think of that makes sense is that the pressure of the piston hitting non-compressible water resulted in the head bolts stretching causing a leaky gasket (oil/coolant mixing) and low compression.
The car starts up without issue and runs fine, just down on power and mixing oil/coolant.
My question to the E30 masterminds of R3V:
Have you ever seen head bolts stretched by a piston compressing water? And does it make any sense for me as a last ditch effort to just crank down the head bolts and see what happens?
Also, I'm in Chattanooga TN and probably need a new engine for my car so if anyone has recs for a shop...
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