Motor Diagnosis was starter woes, Vol 1 #3963

[Kneale Brownson]

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At 02:41 PM 09/18/2002 -0400, Suffolk GameServer LAN wrote:




> >From the conversation on the phone. This is what was determined to be the
>cause:
>In the back of the motor on Cyl #5 the head gasket had failed.
>Somehow material or coolant had worked its way into the cylinder,
>(I previously saw no white cloud -in exhaust- and no loss of coolant in the
>last two months)
>where the coolant and/or gasket material? worked into the #5 rings where it
>collected until it was too much for the starter (on a weak 10.5V battery
>I'll say) to turn the motor over - or at least cyl #5 past top dead center
>TDC while starting.
>
>Engine tuner questions:
>
>1.  Can coolant accumulate to achieve this sticking point to prevent motor
>from turning over?
>
>2.  Can Gasket material fail and there by "fall" into the cylinder?
>
>3.  Did I experience Hydro-lock not detectable by the dipstick rod because
>the seepage was around the rings?
>
>4.  Did the cars orientation of being angled (Nose high) on the ramps for
>several weeks contribute to this?
>
>Mechanic said he'd never seen a failure like this in 20 years of working
>around Audi/VW motors

In the 1960's I had a 911 that had hydraulic timing chain tensioners, one
per bank of cylinders, I think, that (so the mechanic told me) would lose
their prime of oil (allowing for a slack timing chain) if parked for any
length of time at a steep angle.  I personally think they had a bad run of
tensioners from the supplier, because they went bad on that car twice and
it never was parked at any sort of steep angle.

Anyway, my point:  Does your engine have some sort of hydraulic lifter
system that could lose its oil over time the way it was parked and then
screw up valves so they interfered with the engine turning over?
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