[Vwdiesel] Rabbit droppings # 206 --- ( Katrina and your RABBIT )

[Sandy Cameron]

At 08:18 AM 9/8/05 -0700, you wrote:
>So  Katrina dumped a bucket of water on your Rabbit ?  --is all lost ?
----NOT   IMHO.
>

Right on Hagar. Diesels are indestructable (except by idiots), and a little
dunking is just an inconvenience. I note with interest that the military
vehicles in new orleans are all snorkel equipped, permiting the driver a
thorough dunking, but the engine keeps running under water.

About 4 years ago a friend was ferrying building materials across the ice
with his david brown tractor. (NO glow plugs, direct injection)

It sank.

It was early in march, and the tractor  was completely under water until
early May.
I will spare you the recovery story, but it entailed a large floating dock,
chains, cable winch come-alongs, and after the tractor was winched up under
the dock, still submerged,  a 6 mile trip down the lake to a deep water
launch ramp.

Pulled it out and left it for the night (it was quite late), next morning
towed it home and started restoration.

Drained all fluids, fuel, etc.

Trusting the integrity of the injection system to have kept the water out,
did not open any of it.

Changed the fuel filters, blew out the line from the tank, dried the fuel
tank (stuffed a couple of towels in it, stirred them around, pulled them
out. replaced fuel and oil filters, put fresh fuel in the tank. purged the
fuel filters (2 of them in tandem), oil in crankcase.

The tough part, the engine (waterlogged cylinders).

Slackened the intake manifold bolts so it hung away from the block,
carefully turned engine over, some water squirted out.  Screwed the intake
valve adjustments so they would not quite close (yes, I found where they hit
the pistons and backed them off slightly.

When the engine turned freely, spun it with the starter untill no more water
squirted out.

Bolted everything back together, reset valve clearances, 

Battery was too weak to start it, so towed it with a truck. It started
immediately.....but we had to shut it off as my friend put the oil filter
bell on crooked, and oil was spewing out all over the asphalt driveway. A
reportable spill.

Got him to (reluctantly) shut it off, corrected the problem, also drained a
little residual water from the crankcase that had come out of the galleries
when it started.

Towed it again, left it running for a few hours to dry it out, and retired
for libations.

The tractor ran good as new ,  he trucked more materials across the ice in
following years to build his island home, and he eventually sold it for a
fair price.

No water got in to the hydraulic system, except the tank, which was drained,
No water got in to the fuel system at all. Never got past the filters.

He also won a substantial bet from a man who said it would never run again.

2 months submerged in fresh water, no serious damage (the alternator
perished, cheaper to replace than fix, and the starter had to be dismantled
a few days after start-up, to dry it out and relube. The battery recovered
with a low rate charge over a day or 2.

I have heard of aircraft engines recovered from fresh water in the arctic,
and rebuilt, but that required a complete tear-down.

Sandy