Recovering from bore wash. Experiences, solutions, advice needed..
 

Hello,

I am trying to restart my X5 4.4 01 after a bore wash caused (first) by fuel pressure regulator then using wrong advice by doing WOT (clear flood mode which apparently does not apply to my DME and would simply flood the chambers more and wash out every bit of oil) which resulted in scary incidents such as fire out of intake and exploding air filter box etc.

Now I have almost no compression in any cylinder. I have tried most of what I have read on forums like putting oil in each sp hole and cranking continuously to hopefully establish compression and get the car to start. I just can not seem to get much compression restored by putting oil in sp holes because of the angle of each cylinder simply piling the oil at the bottom and not covering most of the cylinder even after cranking with sps out. I have also tried fogging oil.

I can not pass 30 psi with oil method. The cylinders each had around 180 psi before this problem. I have also done a leak down test and almost all of the leak happens thru cylinders and not valves (no bent valves either).

I have done the timing again and the car has no errors reported right now.

I am hoping to hear from people who had this experience and were able to restart (whatever the technique may be)..

Thanks,

Ozzie

Oh dear. I suspect that the path to compression is another engine.

But why? This engine had good (180 psi for each cylinder for 200k+ miles engine) right before the borewash. Completely worn out piston rings because of multiple starting attempts? It's ok to imagine the worst case but I do not see that happening yet..


Thanks,


Ozzie

+1 Sounds like rings are wiped out.

"scary incidents such as fire out of intake and exploding air filter box etc."

Wow! So that did happen? I would take off the valve cover and check rocker arm movement.

You can't clear a fuel injected engine like a carb engine. I've cleared plenty of carb flooded engines. Four stroke to two stroke engines can be cleared by WOT. It's adding air to the extra fuel. FI is different. Only cranking or forced air into the engine can clear it. The best way to clear flooded fuel is to remove the plugs and crank it. Removing the plugs works best on two stroke engines.

Right now it is fuel free. I tried to start the engine a couple of days ago using starter fluid (fuel pump fuse off)


Interestingly a leakdown test shows 50% (not 100%) leak through cylinder (cylinder 5). If there is 0 psi compression, how is that possible?


Thanks,


Ozzie

Check the gauge on a lawnmower motor or other four stroke engine. To test fuel injected engines without a fuel pressure gauge, I pour a little fuel down the throttle body. I mean a little. An engine will run 1-3 seconds with a little bit a fuel. It's a quick way I use to eliminate ignition problems on a FI engine. Especially if I don't have tools. Or the vehicle does not have electronic signals for fuel pressure.

When the TB is hard to reach, an emission hose works too. A little fuel down the emissions hose going into the intake works. I've used it on Tundra trucks with no fuel test port.

Because when you’re down to 30psi compression and it’s around the rings, and especially when you’ve described everything you did, it’s hard to imagine that you have not trashed the rings and gouged the bores at this point.

There’s not a lot to do with an engine that has no compression before you tear it down.

Have you scoped the bores? You can buy a cheap endoscope for like $10 and you can drop it down a spark plug hole and look.

I have not done anything other than trying to start the engine though and that is how too many people recover their cars from bore wash. Everytime I tried to start the engine, there was a bit oil in there and I measured the compression quickly and there was 30 psi compression in there then too.

Is there another way to start a car after a borewash? When I do a quick web search I come across many examples of 'no compression' (different car brands and also E46s for a different reason) after bore wash and most of them seemed to have recovered from it by consistent cranking with oil in sp holes.

I have 2 different borescopes. What would a gouged chamber look like?

Thanks,

Ozzie

The cylinder wall will be toast.