So yesterday evening I got a chance to do a little diag on white #19 and to be honest...I'm confused as to it's issue(s). First thing I checked was the fluids, coolant full & clean, oil...hmmm, no oil on the dipstick, that is oddity #1. I look under the car and the aluminum engine undercover is missing, the center of the subframe is shiney and covered in oil and...the oil pan drain plug is missing. That's oddity #2...had a spare drain plug so I installed it.
Battery is stone cold dead, keyfob is also dead. Put battery on charger, got new remote battery. Picked up 5 quarts of cheap synthetic 0W-20 for testing purposes.
Since the auction notes say it was a flood hydrolock I removed the plastic intake bits, find a bunch of oily foam in intake bits and running out of the throttle body...that's oddity #3. Put a big wrench on the crank bolt, nothing, feels locked up good. Glanced at the coil packs and they were still in place...oddity #4 because normally shops remove the plugs to confirm hydrolock when a car drives in water and has hydrolock symptoms. Insurance usually requires this before they make an assesment. So I went ahead and removed the coil packs and plugs, put the big wrench back on the crank pulley bolt and viola, the engine turns over. No water comes out of the cylinders so I go ahead and turn it over a few more times to make sure it doesn't get hung up on something, sounds normal...no hang ups.
Next I put that 5 quarts of oil in it that I bought, check the dipstick, it shows just under full. Hook up the jump pack, and hit the start button to see if the starter will spin it, sure enough, it does and I hear compression being forced out the empty spark plug holes. Nice! This looks promising. Stopped for the night because it was getting too dark and figured I'd let the battery get charged up, then do a compression test in the morning.
This morning I go out and check the battery...charged says faulty battery...well damn...figure I'll go ahead and use the jump pack to do the compression test but figured I'd check the oil before I did to see if there was evidence of water in the engine (milky oil). Hmmmm....oddity #5...dipstick now shows almost dry again, I double check, same thing....look under car and find a decent sized puddle of fresh oil. My brain says well there must be a rod through the block somewhere causing the oil to leak out. Seems odd that the engine would turn over so easily...but that must be it. So I grab a flashlight and look all around, under the intake manifold, no cracks, no holes, no oil...weird, usually find an obvious exit stage right for the rod there...
Look under car, now it's difficult to see the bottm of the block with the exhaust manifold on, but everywhere I can see is dry and no obvious damage to the block...the only thing that is wet with oil is the exhaust manifold (at the front under the pan) the lower oil pan and the little flywheel cover...WTF??? I grab my phone camera and video up in all the spots I can't really see and find nothing, no wetness, no broken parts....just oil in the places I mentioned.
So I am going through my head trying to figure this out....
- crank turns over and compression can be felt out all 4 cylinders, this would indicate there was not a broken connecting rod issue....
- Dipstick is now almost dry indicating that there is no oil in the pan...where did it go? If there was a leak further up, the pan would still have some oil in it right?
- Oil pan is oily and wet, didn't see any holes in the pan itself, maybe there is a puncture that I missed? That would explain the leak.
- I wonder, if water did get in the oil...could that have caused the oil to foam up, increase the crankcase pressure and possibly push the rear main seal out?
- Even if that were the case...the rear main seal is higher than the pan...I only cranked it over 3 or 4 times last night, does the oil pump draw that much oil that the pan would be dry???
Any guesses? I stopped looking at it today because the rod bearings arrived for the other motor I'm working on (that may go in this car if needed)....I'm going to pull the exhaust manifold next so I can see more as to what may be going on, maybe pull the oil pan as well....but can't until next week due to work stuff.
Couple other notes on this car...it is the cleanest one I've ever bought, no accidents, all the VIN stickers are present, interior is mint, no dings, still smells new inside and the original window sticker was in the glove box....also has those decent TSW wheels...I'm still holding on to a slight bit of hope that it doesn't have a chronic engine issue....