A story with a happy ending - Rover 420 TD engine sucked in floodwater [long]

Thought I'd share a happy (and probably lucky!) story about my recently
purchased Rover 420 TD.

I bought it last Saturday, with a seized turbo, meaning to fix it at
some point (still gave me 46 mpg over the week though!)

Anyway, this morning on the way to work, I came across a flood in the
road (it turned out to be just over sill-depth). Of course, that
normally isn't high enough to reach the intake, so I plunged on in,
confident that I'd be the idiot in the diesel car with a bow wave.

Until the engine went "klonk" and stopped dead, instantly.

What I didn't know then, but do know now, is that the intake pipe had a
whopping hole in it, right at the bottom. Ho hum.

Now, the stupid thing to do is try and crank an engine full of water,
but having been up at 2am the night before I wasn't feeling too bright
and thought I could reverse it out on the starter (with an engine full
of water that was never going to happen). The starter just jammed
against the flywheel.

By this point, water was starting to pour in over the sills, so I moved
my laptop out of a footwell onto a seat, all the time with that
"sinking feeling". A passing 4x4's bow-wave actually floated my car
off the ground briefly. I should point out that this floodwater smelt
quite strongly of sewage. :P

I sat there for a while thinking about what to do. I called my
recovery service, who informed me that actually I wasn't covered for
recovery from water, and it was my own stupid fault for driving into it
in the first place!

At this point I figured that I might as well try to push it out of the
water (I was already soaked since the footwells has filled up with
water right up to the center console). So I got out and tried to heave
it backwards towards dry land (uphill). Fortunately a local farmer was
passing in his Landy and took pity on me and towed the car out
backwards. Anyway, being out of the water changed the story with the
recovery service, and they agreed to come out and bring me and the car
home.

So, I'm at home with my car in the street with a puddle forming around
the car as the footwells drain. At this stage I wasn't holding out
much hope for the engine, especially given my cranking attempt.

I figured out that the best way to get water out of the cylinders was
to remove the injectors and crank it on the starter. After dismantling
the intake and getting the injectors out, it was clear from shining a
torch into the holes that there was a lot of water sitting in the
cylinders. I checked the cambelt, which appeared OK.

So I got my wife to watch the engine to see if any water dribbled out,
while I cranked it.

From my position in the drivers seat, everything in front of the raised
bonnet disappeared in a cloud of water, including my wife (she saw the
funny side, thankfully!). It just kept coming, much like the
Bournemouth dancing waters, but in the firing sequence of the
cylinders. I'm still amazed so much water could be in an engine, as
were the neighbours and other passer's by, who stopped to watch the
fool with a fountain in his engine bay.

So I returned the injectors to the engine to see if it would turn over
without stopping, which it did, after a few false starts. I
reconnected the fuel system, all the time suspecting that something
else would be broken...

Much to my amazement, it started to fire on a few cylinders (with a bit
of throttle work) and eventually all four! Out of the exhaust emerged
a vile concoction of water, diesel and oil, and it continued to run
really lumpy, all the time putting out clouds of oily smoke (at this
stage I was convinced the gasket was gone).

But as it ran, it cleaned up until it was running normally. I took it
for a quick blast up the road (clearning more mess out of the exhaust),
and everything was fine.

However - and this is the really odd bit - the turbo had un-seized, and
was whistling away quite happily, giving lots of lovely boost!

I've driven it about a fair bit tonight and it really is running well.
I'm delighted. :)

So this is a tribute to the amazing strength of the Rover 2.0 TD
engine, which survived water ingestion without stripping the cambelt,
popping a gasket or bending either the valves, crankshaft or camshaft.

Thought you would all appreciate a story with a happy ending.

THE END :)

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