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.

What brand of filter/regulator was it?

After you put a couple tablespoons of 30 weight into each cylinder, hand rotate the engine to bottom out each cylinder one at a time and with a Harbor Freight air nozzle with the long skinny extensions (and don't use any tips that will fall off) stick it down the spark plug hole and hit it with a good shot of compressed air. That will spread oil all over the inside of the cylinder and maybe even use a rag to keep from oiling everything on the outside of the cylinder. This method is way easier than shaking the motor around in all directions like some other small engine versions of oiling the cylinder walls.

You'll see vertical scratches on the cylinder walls. If they are there, the block is basically done. (I mean, you could rebuild it, but who rebuilds a 4.4?)

It was the original BMW brand.


Thanks,


Ozzie

Will try. What would be the cranking / starting process? How long for each crank and delay to cool down the starter? I am trying right now with a battery booster and that gives me around 15 tries of 5 secs. Would getting a jump from another car help? I am reading heat would also have an effect on start because of expansion of metals.


Also, I am using a starting fluid not to flood the engine again. Any keys on how much of it to use each time?


Thanks,


Ozzie

Scope the bores before you do anything else at all.

This isn't entirely accurate. Ford, GM, and other manufacturers have a clear flood mode built into their ECMs even back into the late 80s. Hold the pedal down to WOT and the computer disables the injectors allowing you to clear the cylinders.

BMW didn't see the need to include this in the e-series DME.

I will do that for sure but even if I see some scratches etc. I am not going to give up on an engine that quickly. For now, I find it hard to believe a fuel wash could destroy an entire engine by trying to start it multiple times.

And yes, I would look into rebuilding it if it's dead. I rebuilt its transmission recently and changed the timing chain guides etc as well.

Thanks,

Ozzie

Fuel wash can easily trash an engine. You poured enough fuel in that it backfired hard enough to blow up the intake.

And almost no one rebuilds these motors because you can get used ones for a tiny fraction of the cost of even a DIY rebuild.

Honestly, the last ditch thing that I would do is probably pour a LOT of marvel mystery oil or a similar snake oil product in the cylinders and let it sit there for a while. Put enough in there that at TDC, the cylinder is totally full. Turn the engine over BY HAND periodically for a day or so to really let that soak in. Try to let it sit at a different piston's TDC every time you leave it. Vacuum out the excess and then crank it for a while with the spark plugs REMOVED, before you put the plugs in and try to get it going.

Ouch!

+1 :iagree:

Quick update : I did a leak down test on the cylinders. 4 of them actually showed only 10% loss but when I quickly did a compression test I only see 10 psi. How would that be possible other than 2 different compression testers being inaccurate?

There are some scuff marks inside cylinders but I can not tell how bad the damage is by just looking.

One other thing I noticed is most of the spark plugs had oil on them which I believe is because there was still some oil inside the cylinders when I was trying to start the car. That also made me believe those plugs did not fire because of oil presence. I will clean them out (or just use new ones) and eventually try to start the car again..

Thanks,

Ozzie

Leakdown is a static test. Things may seal at one specific point in the bore, but leak a lot in motion.

I am not going to deny you have a point but out of curiosity, what is the point of doing a leakdown test if it gives such inaccurate results? And I know most mechanics claim they'd prefer a leakdown test over compression particularly because it will tell you where the leak is. I have done the test both at TDC and BDC (both times valves closed) and got the same result. So in any moment of piston travel the whole compression would be gone because of a horrible damage done by bore wash although I made sure there was oil in there most of the time. I would like to also add the engine never was warm so the metals may not even be expanded enough to damage each other.

What about the oily spark plugs, you think they were working in such condition?

Thanks,

Ozzie

The short answer is that both leakdown and compression tests tell you different things. Compression tests also require a working starter. That's also why you would scope the bores. I would always do both if possible.

And no, I wouldn't expect spark plugs fouled with oil to work. Hell, too much fuel is enough to foul a spark plug.

Edit: The way that I would put it is this - If you're just trying to get a gauge for the health of a motor, I'd want a compression test. If you're trying to diagnose a motor, a leakdown test is *usually* more useful.

I'm switching back to venting my pressure regulator to the atmospere instead of the air intake! ;)

I see some scuff marks but it is hard to tell if they would cause so much compression loss without touching them (I believe the test is to see if the scuff is 'noticeable' by touch). I may be able to extend the camera there to see if I feel anything. Or simply just give up and take the head off :)

Thanks again for all your input..

Ozzie

I am looking at a new (used) Bimmer, possibly an X3 to keep my old X5 as a project car..


Ozzie

The X3 is a newer platform and different fuel system so "I think" (I don't have a manual or diagrams for the X3) the fuel pressure regulator will no longer be a problem.

I wanted to share my own recent experience with this.

My car: 2003 E39 530i 5-speed manual with M54B30 engine and 420,000 miles on original engine.

Summary:
-I have never experienced “Cylinder Wash” or “Bore Wash” before.
-I tried starting my car in sub-freezing weather after letting it sit for 7-10 days
-The car stumbled badly, like it was running on 2-3 cylinders – this had happened 1-2 times before.
-I immediately shut it down and tried to re-start 3x with no success. Car sounded like it had little compression.
-I did a compression test and sure enough had just 30 -60 psi on all 6 cylinders…way too low.
-I figured maybe I skipped a tooth on the timing chain – and was thinking I might just part out or scrap this 530i as I have other cars that need attention.
-but I pulled the valve cover and checked timing and it was perfect.
-So taking advice in e46 thread below -in particularly from MrMCar and JFOJ, I put 2 tablespoons of oil in each cylinder with piston at the bottom of bore.
-Cylinders are slanted, so I tried to get as much oil as I could around the highest part of the piston with a long tube.
-I also used compressed air to try and distribute oil around cylinder (a suggestion found here) and I heated up each spark plug briefly with a propane torch.
-Re-installed valve cover, plugs and coils and kept my fingers crossed.
-Sat in driver’s seat with a fully charged battery and cranked engine for approximately 60 seconds when it finally started!!
-The car stumbled, but did not stall…I was able to the feather the gas pedal to keep it going.
-The car produced so much smoke I thought the neighbors were going to call the cops..
-The engine stabilized in 30-50 seconds after starting. I drove it slowly around the neighborhood with temp shown on cluster until I reached full operating temp.
-Brought it home and after cooling, pulled plugs to clean any oil off them before reinstalling.
-Drove car again today to full operating temp. It now seems to start and run fine.

Cylinder wash IS a real thing and it happens when too much gas gets into the cylinder and washes all of the oil (and compression) out of the piston bore and rings.
In my case, my piston rings are almost certainly worn, which may have contributed to this issue, but there are plenty of posts from cars with less than 200k miles.

You won't ruin your cylinder bores if you catch it quickly.

I am running 5W30 synthetic oil from Walmart if anyone is interested.

Cylinder wash seems to happen in colder weather.

The thread listed below was a huge help in solving this issue:
https://www.e46fanatics.com/threads/...n-fix.1254795/

So what caused the wash? Leaking injectors? Was it running fine before sitting for 7-10days? Just curious.

It was running fine before sitting. Although on occasional rainy days and after sitting for more than a few days - particularly in cold weather- it occasionally started with a bad mis-fire. Not sure why. In the past when this happened, If I shut it off and restarted it would run fine on the 2nd start-up.

In this case, I shut it off as soon as I heard it misfire. I then attempted to re-start it 3 times with no luck. Each attempted start was priming the fuel line and firing injectors, but since there was no combustion, the fuel was just washing away the oil in the cylinders.

I do need to find out why I have the occasional stumble on start-up in cold or wet weather.

The injectors were recently (last 6 months) refurbished and tested.