Sitting in bumper to bumper traffic, on a steep hill ( facing up), my car seemed to go onto 3 cylinders, so I revved her up to clear her throat, and CLOUDS of oily smoke was belched from my tail pipe. I pulled over and she stalled. I had to re-start her after a couple of minutes to try to get her off the road, then shut her down.

I left her to cool for an hour or so, then attempted to start, and nothing..... no click from the started- bugger all. Now there was still oil pressure when the smoke was bellowing, and temp was at about 9.30 on the dial.

I guess that either my thermostat or front oil fan is broken, and my oil is over-filled. As I've left it on a steep hill, the oil has gotten into the cylinders and I've got hydrolic lock as the pistons can't compress the oil.

Are my guesses along the right track, or have I really f*cked it up?????

Cheers,

Mark (very tired and grumpy!)

 

I would find it hard to believe that enough oil would get into the cylinders to hydrolock it from a overfill. Sounds like you got oil in the MAF and have a battery or starter issue. You could always put a socket on the pulley and see if it turns or even pull a plug to see if its full of oil.

 

no click - no voltage or no solinoid

 

I'll get a plug out tomorrow and report back.

 

Broken distributor belt?

 

Jaime, now there's one I hadn't thought of.............

Are the symptoms the same ????

It's 11pm I'm gonna sleep on it. Thanks for the pointers fella's.

Mark.

 

Maybe two separate problems that coincidentally happened about the same time? One is electrical (hence it won't turn over) and the other is something else (the smoke, rough running, stalling). First problem occurs which creates the smoke and stalls the engine. Then in the process of trying to restart it, perhaps it was just too much for a starter solenoid or other component that was about to fail anyway. Just a wild guess. Let us know what you find.

 

immobilize maybe ?

 

Was the oil recently changed? Any chance it was overfilled? Any unusual engine noise before she went on 3 cylinders? I can't buy the hydraulic lock theory - the car started reliably and was running fine when this happened, right?

Get a wrench onto the alternator nut and turn the engine through two complete revolutions. You should feel six compressions. Don't waste any time on the starter problem if you don't feel all compression strokes. If you got compression, that is good news. If you eliminate oil over-fill as the cause for the sudden smoking, you still have a major engine problem. If it was over-filled, fix that first and then it should be OK.

Good luck. Be sure to report back - we all learn more about our cars from shared experiences.

 

Good morning gentlemen.......

Well, I started by taking out a plug from each cylinder and turning the car over by hand. There was a lot of oil in the rear cylinder on the oil tank side (not sure what number that is!) so I worked on the fact that it had been overfilled for the last 15 months (!!!!) since I had the top end re-built.

Drained off a couple of litres and cleaned the ISV before returning the plugs. The oil level gauge must be shot too, but I've left that for the time being. The fan on the oil cooler wasn't working either, which obviously contributed to the problem, which is now fully operational.

So, the conclusion is hydrolic lock caused by excessive oil level, and defective oil cooling on a hottish (72F) day, and sitting still in traffic on a steep hill.

The moral of this tale is to always use the dip-stick and not the gauge( I know, I know..), and check that the cooler fan upfront comes on at 9 o'clock on the temp gauge. Us guys in the UK don't often get to running in hot weather, and it's easy to just not notice if the fan cuts in or not. Anyway, lesson learnt.........

Oh, there was nothing wrong with the battery or the starter as she fired up on the 3rd attempt in a big cloud of black smog that took 20 minutes to clear. I'm glad I deleted the cat a while back!

Thanks for the pointers again,

Mark 90C2.