Katrina nailed my car

Gears & Crosses

Founding Member
Nov 15, 2001
150
0
26
Southern, Miss.
I need help guys. My cherished SVO got flooded in Hurricane Katrina. The reason why I am posting here is the car has an 87 5.0 engine installed in it. Anyway, my car recieved about 2 1/2 feet of water in it. Water did go in the engine. What I am looking to do is TRY to get it running if possible if it is finacially worth it. The car doesn't look bad at all, and I just got an 85 GT interior that I can change it to if necessary.

What are some first steps to get the engine/car ready to try and start?

It may be a long shot but I feel the car is worth it,
Gears
 
Change ALL the fluids (including gas), pull the plugs, blow out the chambers with compressed air, and crank the motor over to push any moisture out of the combustion chambers. A shot of WD-40 into the spark plug whole wouldn't hurt anything either. Prior to cranking the motor over with the starter, put a wrench on the crank pulley to ensure that the motor will turn freely. You'll likely be replacing some electronics and will have to trouble shoot those one issue at a time. I suppose you could start by pulling your EEC and taking it to a Ford dealership for a bench check. If the motor cranks well without the plugs and after you've expelled the water form the chambers, you'll likely want to crank the motor for a while with the plugs installed and the coil wire pulled. It'll give you at least some vac to pull moisture out of the vac lines before trying to ignite the motor. Once the fuel tank is drained... drop some gas dryer in there prior to filling it back up. 5 gallons of gas will be more than enough initially. Don't top off the tank until you're sure that the fuel pump is in good working order.
 
Pull the engine, pull the oil pan and inspect for corrosion.

Be prepared to do the same for the trans and rear axle.

Pressure bleed the brake system. Brake fluid has an affinity for water. Water in your brake system corrodes the pistons and causes them to seize up.

Garden Sprayer Pressure Bake Bleeder

1 each pump type garden sprayer, 1 - 1 ½ gallon capacity (size doesn’t matter much, it just has to be cheap and small enough to be easy to work with)
6-10 feet 3/8” clear plastic tubing
1 each ¼” brass pipe tee
1 each ¼” pipe to 3/8: hose adapter
1 each pressure gauge 0-60 PSI or so – all you’ll ever need is 5- 10 PSI, so the gauge range doesn’t have to be high.
1 each large rubber stopper – this is the hard part to find. It may take some searching to find one that is a snug push fit to the inside of the filler port on the master cylinder. You can use silicone rubber to seal a brass fitting to an old master cylinder cap, but they tend to leak too much.
Home Depot or Lowes has some ¼” brass pipe stock that is continuously threaded in the electric lamp repair department, along with the brass nuts that go with it. This is better than a pipe nipple, since the nuts can be used to secure the pipe in the cap or stopper.
OR if you can’t find the threaded pipe stock,
1 each ¼” nipple, 1 ½”- 2” long

The rubber stopper needs a hole drilled in it for the ¼” pipe nipple or threaded pipe stock. After you drill the hole, use some silicone gasket sealer to seal the pipe nipple as you push it into the rubber stopper. If you used the threaded pipe stock, use the nuts to secure the stock into the stopper.

If you can’t find a suitable rubber stopper, an old master cylinder cap can be used. Drill a ½” hole in the center for the pipe fitting. Cut the brass pipe stock to about 1”- 1 ½” long, the exact length isn’t too important. Push it through the hole in the master cylinder cap and thread one nut on top of the pipe stock where it sticks though the cap. Put another nut on the other side of the cap to lock the pipe stock in place. Apply some silicone rubber gasket sealer to both sides and when it is dry, screw the ¼” pipe that sticks out of the top of the cap into the tee.

Remove the sprayer hose and wand from the garden sprayer. You may find it easier just to cut the sprayer hose off short and connect it to the 3/8” plastic tubing. The idea is that the 3/8” tubing connects to the pickup tube inside the sprayer in a reliable, leak proof fashion. Another alternative is to remove the spray nozzle from the end of the spray wand and connect the 3/8” tubing to the wand. This leaves the hand valve in place and may be useful to start/stop the flow of brake fluid.

The 3/8” plastic tubing connects to the pipe tee using a push on hose barb type adapter. The pipe tee has one port for the gauge, one for the 3/8” hose and the other to connect to the rubber stopper or master cylinder cap that you modified.

Fill the pump sprayer with a quart of brake fluid. Set the garden sprayer on the ground and screw the pump handle down tight, and pump until brake fluid fills the plastic tubing. Then put the modified stopper or master cylinder cap on the master cylinder and pump slowly to make sure that nothing leaks or pops loose. No leaks, continue pumping until you get 5-10 PSI. Put a 6”-12” length of clear plastic tubing on the bleeder ports. Then open the bleeder ports on the wheel cylinders one at a time and bleed until the bubbles are gone. I use a 2 liter soda bottle with a coat hanger to catch the fluid . DO NOT REUSE THE OLD BRAKE FLUID. Repeat the process until you have finished all 4 wheels. You will have to pump the sprayer several times to maintain the 5-10 PSI needed to do the job. When finished bleeding, loosen the pump handle to relieve the pressure, remove the stopper/modified master cylinder cap and test the pedal.
 
Drain the oil, trans, and rear axle, and refill.

Pull the plugs and spin it over by hand or with the starter if it works. Spray some wd 40 in there.

You probably should drop the gas tank, if you think water got that high.

At least drain some gas out of the fuel rail and make sure theres no water. Put fresh gas in.

I would remove the kick panel and the EEC and blow dry it some. Or just swap in another one.

Then crank it up. The sooner the better. For PWC's, they say to crank as soon as possible after submerging.

If in salt water, and you gotta wait a while, they say submerge in fresh water. I would not do that, but I would fresh water wash as much of it as possible.

It may surprise you how well it does. 4wd guys do this regularly.
 
Thanks for all the replies guys,
I thought I was going to get to do this today, but I had to run the wife around town. Maybe tomorrow. I like all the suggestions and will be doing them (except dropping the oil pan).

rd said:
If in salt water, and you gotta wait a while, they say submerge in fresh water. I would not do that, but I would fresh water wash as much of it as possible.

It may surprise you how well it does. 4wd guys do this regularly.

I was lucky that my car got only fresh water. Most cars got flooded with Salt or brackish water.

I am hoping to get lucky (as you mentioned) to get this thing started and running. It had a miss before it went under so this will only make it worse. I to give it a shot. If I can get it to run and get most of the accesseries to work that would be great.

Gears
 
Update:

Drained the engine and transmission oil. There was hardly any in there, mostly water came out. The flood water pushed all the good oil out since it floats. I flushed oil pan with two quarts of oil. I will be putting fresh fluids in next, then I will be spinning the engine over by hand with the spark plugs out and WD40 in the cylinders.

Thanks,
Gears