Water in Intake?
Thread Starter
On The Tree
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 114
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Water in Intake? So I had my fuel injectors out for about 6 months, I plugged the holes with paper towels and it rained a couple of times. When I pulled out the paper towels they were soaked. I drained the oil and it was very milky colored im guessing mixed with water. I added new oil and swapping out injectors. Will I be okay to drive or is safe to take the intake off and check for rust? Please let me know thanks
You can always pull the plugs and turn it over to be sure there is no water in the bores otherwise it might hydrolock and do serious damage. If it turns over fine then put the plugs in with fresh oil and run it for a couple minutes and see how it sounds. I've had a couple people bring me engines to put in their cars looked like they sat outside for who knows how long. Pulled the plugs and had water shoot out when turning over, When I call they said to go ahead and put it in. Surprisingly they both ran fine.
If you have expensive crank/rods/pistons then take it apart, If it's stock and you're just going to rebuild it anyway it might be worth trying.
If you have expensive crank/rods/pistons then take it apart, If it's stock and you're just going to rebuild it anyway it might be worth trying.
TECH Veteran
Joined: Apr 2008
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LT1 is a iron block with aluminum heads except B-body has iron heads
if you pull the plugs and crank and water comes out the plug holes you know water got into cyl. How bad any rust might be...would not know unless you pull heads...OR ...get one of those video probe tools from Harbor Freight to look through plug hole into cyl.
If no water comes out the plug holes just change oil, start it and it should wear any mild surface rust, if any, quickly.
if you pull the plugs and crank and water comes out the plug holes you know water got into cyl. How bad any rust might be...would not know unless you pull heads...OR ...get one of those video probe tools from Harbor Freight to look through plug hole into cyl.
If no water comes out the plug holes just change oil, start it and it should wear any mild surface rust, if any, quickly.
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I'd suggest doing the above first three steps, but don't worry about rust. I'd also put every piston at TDC and get a shop vac up against the spark plug hole. As stated in another thread there is enough oily residue where rust should not be a problem for that short a time. The cowing is not even close to being water resistant. Had the intake off on my motor, rained really hard and I ended up draining a gallon of water out of the oil pan. Car had sat like that for a week. It was good to go. Always thought there may be rust, but after opening it up later on down the road it looked just fine.
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Verdad Gallardo TECH Veteran
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 4,985
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Well I assume the inside of the vac hose did not look like that before you started (read was that crap already inside the hose).....if not it looks like whatever debris you had on top of the motor with injectors out got washed into the intake. How much is still in there IDK but that kind of crap is not good getting into the cylinders once motor does start. Might want to think about pulling intake before you start it to see/clean out whatever is still in the top of the motor before you try and start it as once it does start it will suck whatever crap there is in the motor into the cyl. and that's where you will get engine damage
Might want to do the same vacuum thing through the spark plug holes also which will tell you if water is sitting in cyl also
Might want to do the same vacuum thing through the spark plug holes also which will tell you if water is sitting in cyl also
Thread Starter
On The Tree
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 114
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I can only get access to 4 plugs. The rest are hard to get to since my headers are very thick. I know I did the plugs 2 years back and it took forever to change. Shop tried to charge me $800. I’ll try to take off the intake also but that looks like it will be a whole day job.
