No, I am not trying to start anything! I feel that getting a proper diagnosis of an expensive failure is very important so...

How can an intercooler leak lead to hydro-lock?

1. Running truck gets parked with a large intercooler leak (what causes such a large leak will be left to a different discussion).

a. how much fluid will leak out with the truck just sitting there?

b. how much will the lower intake hold before any of the fluid actually gets through the ports and into the cylinder?

While a head gasket leak or fuel injector issue can fill a cylinder easily, an intercooler leak puddles up in the lower intake not the cylinder.

Any vehicle that hydro-locks from a leaking intercooler would have a lower intake that was basically FULL of fluid and the intercooler bottle would be empty.

 

Don't know, however there is a guy here in town that had the same thing happen. He hydro-locked his motor with fluid from the intercooler. So yes it is possible. I see no reason not to believe it.

 

well it doesnt just lock up. What probally happened is when it went to be started and it turned over, it locked up.If one of the rails in the intercooler broke while the truck was hot even if it wasnt running.(it usually happens coming up to temp or dooling down) Quite a bit of coolant can leak into the engine because it is under pressure.

 

The intercooler coolant isn't under pressure unless it's boiling hot (like over 200 degrees), which it is only when the truck's being driven very hard on a warm day.

One other thing, if someone tried to start it and it wouldn't turn/fire because it was hydro-locked, there shouldn't be any real engine damage. The starter doesn't have enough power to bend rods (even the powdered metal type).

 

Follow me here.

The IC would have to be pressurized and fluid would have to be pouring out... OR when you turn the truck off, the IC is still leaking it can puddle. NOW the lower intake (under IC) has a valve at the bottom for oil and other fluids to drain.

If you drove the truck, turned it off, the IC was pressurized and leaked, the fluid would go down the drain, not down the runners to the cylinder

 

Oh yea i forgot it was on a seperate system, My bad LOL

 

The hose fitting is part of the pcv system and only sucks oil into the lower manifold. Once fluids are in the lower manifold they only have one exit unless you take the motor apart. If the intercooler was full and emptied into the lower manifold there would be plenty of fluid to fill a few cylinders.

 

so you're thinking the lower manifold was FULL of fluid? That is a LOT of fluid!
you're talking at least a gallon to reach the runners to the cylinder.

that would be one heck of a hole.
Plus that doesn't make sense either! Wouldn't the pressure created by the S/c PUSH a/f INTO the i/c, instead of allowing coolant (under much less pressure) leak out?

something doesn't sound right!

 

Is this possibly what happened to mine?

 

I thought it went the other way.. that oil sucked through the s/c due to the PCV system would gather at the bottom of the lower manifold and drain out of it.

 

The line off the lower intake is not a drain. The fitting has a very fine metered hole in it. It's designed to slowly pull the oil out of the lower intake that accumlates there, and feed it back into the blower.

One thing I CAN say.... is that when the I/C let go in my 99 (before the recall), there was coolant EVERYWHERE in my motor. In the oil, in the intake, in the top of the heads, in the TB boot and MAF.... in every crevice it could possibly go.

 

She was a "squirter" eh? LOL

 

seems like the blower would spray it into the runners.

 

like a water injection kit?

 

Could it be a possibility that the intercooler antifreeze/water mix was on the weak side? Wouldn't that cause the intercooler to freeze and pop open, then let antifreeze/water mix pour into the motor after the truck warmed up enough to melt the ice?

Wonder if the intercooler tank was checked for the mixture content of the truck with the blown motor

better have my intercooler mix checked ASAP