This is a Volvo-Penta boat engine, which is just a GM Vortec 5.7 V8.
Owner brought it to us because he went to start it after it sat for 3 months, and it would no longer crank. I listened to the motor as my tech went to try to start it, and heard the notorious hollow "thunk" of the starter hitting the flywheel of a seized engine. He and I agreed that the spark plugs should be pulled and attempt another crank.
Owner gave us his complete assurances that the engine was running perfectly when he flushed it before covering it in his yard, but we can never shake the natural assumption that a boat somehow ended up with water in its engine. We just see it too darn much. Customers usually lie to us until they find out how many thousands of dollars their problem is going to cost, and then they start "remembering" details they think will help to reduce the cost of fixing their disaster.
While my tech was removing the plugs, water and a LOT of clean engine oil came pouring out of the plug holes.
Spark plugs looked like:
Cylinder #4 had it the worst, and some nice rust chunks on the end of the plug.
After cranking the engine with the plugs out, this is what more came out:
It's a bit of a dubya-tee-eff right now, that's for sure. Assume the owner is telling the truth about the engine being perfectly fine before storing it for 3 months, how could this happen?
Dipstick shows perfect oil levels in the crankcase, excluding the possibility that the engine filled with so much water that it pushed the oil up through the piston rings.
My tech is going to perform a compression test tomorrow to see if we're looking at a compromised head gasket situation. Seems like a good possibility to me, since this is going on entirely in the right hand cylinder bank. Left bank seems completely unaffected.
Owner brought it to us because he went to start it after it sat for 3 months, and it would no longer crank. I listened to the motor as my tech went to try to start it, and heard the notorious hollow "thunk" of the starter hitting the flywheel of a seized engine. He and I agreed that the spark plugs should be pulled and attempt another crank.
Owner gave us his complete assurances that the engine was running perfectly when he flushed it before covering it in his yard, but we can never shake the natural assumption that a boat somehow ended up with water in its engine. We just see it too darn much. Customers usually lie to us until they find out how many thousands of dollars their problem is going to cost, and then they start "remembering" details they think will help to reduce the cost of fixing their disaster.
While my tech was removing the plugs, water and a LOT of clean engine oil came pouring out of the plug holes.
Spark plugs looked like:
Cylinder #4 had it the worst, and some nice rust chunks on the end of the plug.
After cranking the engine with the plugs out, this is what more came out:
It's a bit of a dubya-tee-eff right now, that's for sure. Assume the owner is telling the truth about the engine being perfectly fine before storing it for 3 months, how could this happen?
Dipstick shows perfect oil levels in the crankcase, excluding the possibility that the engine filled with so much water that it pushed the oil up through the piston rings.
My tech is going to perform a compression test tomorrow to see if we're looking at a compromised head gasket situation. Seems like a good possibility to me, since this is going on entirely in the right hand cylinder bank. Left bank seems completely unaffected.
