Ok, I need some help. I know nothing about engines. I was driving on highway at about 65 mph in July in Texas - in other words it was HOT AND DRY weather. Suddenly truck lost power and wouldn't accelerate over 30 mph. BUt the truck would run.

Dealer replaced spark plugs. Same problem. Dealer tore down engine and said envirnmental water entered the intake manifold and the engine had "hydrostatic lock" and the rods were bent (even tho they did not examine the rods, but they measured something and said it was off .001, which indicates the rods are bent). They claim there was no evidence of coolant in the cylinders, but were water drops on valves and rust in cylinders. There is no way in the world envirnmental water got into the engine. Now dealer and ford says ESP is void, wanted to replace engine at my expense. I had engine replaced by a third party and the truck had the same problem. I then discovered that the catalytic converter was clogged. I replaced the catalytic converter and it fixed the problem.

So here are my Qs: 1. Does anyone know if Ford has a manufacturing problem with rods, pistons, cylinders, gaskets block etc.. 2. Could clogged catalytic converter cause bent rods???? 3. waddya all think????

 

It sounds as though you have run into a real t*rd for a dealer. There are several things that don't make sense in your post.

To have hydrostatic lock, it would be necessary for at least one cylinder to be completely full of fluid with the valves closed before you would get hydrostatic lock. Then, the engine will not turn at all. I've had this happen on a motorcycle, never on a car engine.

I doubt seriously that hydrostatic lock would bend rods. Note that the engine will not turn over when hydrostatically locked. Now, it is possible to in a DIESEL engine to seriously damage it by injecting water into the cylinder. This happens for two reasons. First, with the higher compression of a diesel, there is a much smaller space at the top of the stroke, and a small amount of water could create a real problem. Second, diesels inject directly into the cylinder. But gasoline engines do not. They inject into the intake manifold. So, even if you had water in your gas, it would not create hydrostatic lock.

But, since your engine was turning over, it couldn't possibly be hydrostatic lock. The dealer is full of it.

Next, it is very unusual for catalytic converters to become so clogged that they cause the engine to barely run. Where has this truck been, what kind of gas was put into it such that the catalytic converter was ruined? Are there other mods?

Rust in the cylinders is highly unusual. Did you see it? For one thing, as the piston moves up and down the cylinder walls, it scrapes anything that might be on the cylinder walls. Now, if you open up an engine in a damp environment and leave it for days, you'll start seeing rust. I'd say the dealer is full of it again.

 

Water cannot be compressed. If it enters a cylinder, something has to give. It is usually the connecting rods.

 

There would have to be more stress in the cylinder than normal operating conditions to bend a rod. I would say no way it(plugged cat) would. If you have the Bumper to bumper ESP, then they eat it no matter what.

Thats an expensive way to diagnose a plugged cat.

 

I agree but that depends on what is normal. 3 or 4K rpms is plenty to bend a rod if water is present in the combustion chamber.
Andrea: I would want to see proof of the bent rod and why they didn't check the exhaust system first. If they say there wasn't coolant in the cylinders, then their story is VERY fishy. I think if you keep looking in this "Engine" section, you'll find your answers about bad cylinder blocks and gaskets.

 

Hello Andrea and welcome to F150online. While it is possible to bend a rod from hydrolock it would require conditions in which your motor ingests major amounts of water while simultaneously running at very high RPMs.

It would take something like driving through water that's over your hoodline while running over 3K RPMs as Frank mentioned. You obviously did niether of the two making it nearly impossible.

As Beastrider mentioned, something caused your catalytic converter to foul up and you need to investigate that! As clean and lean as these trucks run I would expect a catalytic converter to last the life of the vehicle.

Avoid that dealer Like the plague!! Whether he was motivated to swap your engine in order to scam you, or just out of technical ignorance he's not any kind of establishment you'll ever want to do business with.

Good luck and read on there's a wealth of info on this site.

 

Hydrostatic lock will certainly bend rods.
We see it here at the factory at times when the fuel injectors fail and fill the cylinder with fuel.
I sounds to me that your dealer does not know what they are doing.
On some years of trucks the air pickup was down at the bottom of the bumper, they brought it back up to the hood level later. If you go through deep enough water with the air pickup at the bottom of the bumper you will injest water.

 

The first thing I thought of when I read this is the old "potato in the tail pipe" gag. I can't believe the dealer didn't do ANY exhaust trouble shooting. So much for factory certified. A clogged catalytic converter should not bed rods. Since they misdiagnosed this so badly I think they should reimburse you completely for all of the unnecessary work.

 

This is working purely on theory, except where noted:

Facts:
As mentioned, water can not be compressed. Less than a tablespoon of water in the combustion chamber could cause a rod to bend. The claimed measurement used to determine a rod was bent was only off by .001". Less than a teaspoon of water could cause this. This was probably determined by measuring the piston height at TDC with a fixed dial gauge mounted into the spark plug hole. And lastly, a clean burning engine produces water in the exhaust.

Now for the theory:
I can't help but wonder if there isn't someway any water created in the exhaust could have been sucked back into the cylinder. The only way I can even imagine something like that happening is if, when cold, the exhaust was suddenly blocked while running. For example, if the truck was started cold, and while water was collecting in the exhaust, the truck was quickly backed up into a bank of sand (or similar), unexpectedly blocking the exhaust. The engine should kill, but on attempted restarts, couldn't the engine actually suck in any water that hadn't been expelled from the exhaust? Or, if the engine was at higher than normal rpms when the exhaust was suddenly blocked, couldn't the subsequent engine dying create a vacuum in the exhaust strong enough to suck some water in? If it did in either case, the following up stroke in said cylinder would be the compression stroke, and the water would be trapped.

I know this is reaching, and doesn't jive with the customers description, but isn't it possible? It doesn't explain the clogged cats, either, but work with me here.

Any thoughts?

Take care,
-Chris

 

I don't see how this can be the case. Take a 5.4 liter engine. Each cylinder is 675 cc's (bore and stroke), plus the combustion chamber in the head, which at a 9.0 compression ratio, is about 84 cc. One tablespoon is 14.8 cc's, so it would take a lot more than a sinlge tablespoon of water to fill the cylinder to create hyrdostatic lock.

 

The rod was bent or 'off' .001 ?

You can bend a con rod that much by dropping it 5 feet onto a concrete or ceramic tile floor if it hit the right way.

I guess the dealer don't know how small of a tolerance 1 One-Thousandth-of-an-Inch really is...

I agree, the dealer is full of it and you should sick the wild dogs (lawyers) on them to make it right. Or sometimes a simple call to the Better Business Bureau fixes thing like this.

Good luck.

 

Thanks, guys for all of the replys.
First, the dealer said the engine was in partial hydrostatic lock. What the heck is that??? sounds like Disneyland to me.

Jungleman-- THe air intake is down near the bumper in this truck. Seems like a design defect to me. Does anyone know if you can find out if Ford is aware of design defects? WHat factory are you referring to?

Frank S - they are saying that there was no evidence of coolant in the cylinders. Why is that fishy?

The dealer claims they did not check the exhaust system because when they hooked the truck up to the WDS (computer) it showed a misfire and two codes for lean - fuel not burning and if the cat was clogged, it would be burning rich, not lean. THey say that burning lean indicates a problem with the cylinders. So they opened it up, left it open for a week. No wonder there was rust. Mechanic claims he sprayed WD40 on the cylinders. Farther diagnosis showed that there was two other cylinders that did not have enough compression to fire.

Get this-- Dealer says the engine can be in partial hydrostatic lock- water in cylinder and not running right. Is this possible?

 

Yes, if the exhaust were blocked/plugged/restricted there would be a tendency to run rich however the computer and sensors should compensate for this, to a degree.

Coolant getting into the cylinder is usually a symptom of a leaking head gasket. You'd not see the leak outside of the motor but coolant could be leaking into one or more of the cylinders from the 'inside' portion of the gasket. Not finding coolant in the cylinders, but just 'water', is fishy since where the heck did it come from ? It sounds fishy for sure that they blame this on hydrostatic lock.

I'd still challenge the .001 inch rod 'bend'. I'll bet the tolerances between each rod in a modern V8 built for street applications (like most of us have) have greater tolerances than that. My feeling is that a rod being bent .001" won't do jack and is just a bunch of BS to try and make you pay for their mistake.

 

Again, they are claiming envirnmental water that came in throught the intake manifold.

Got me.

 

This is absolutely and totally pap and crap.

a) by definition, hydorstatic LOCK means that the engine won't turn over because a non compressible fluid is filling one or more cylinders. If it turns over, it isn't locked, partially or otherwise.

b) IF there was water in a cylinder I would note that it boils at 212 degrees. Even if a cylinder were not firing it would soon be warm enough to evaporate water out of the cylinder.