Water in Cylinder Block

[Greg Nilles]

Prostar 190 Ford 351

Original Question 2 weeks ago

My 1989 Prostart 351 Ford overheated last weekend as I pulled it to the dock. It ran fine all day 4 hours (17 miles down the lake and back) 140 to 160 degrees. Why idling at the dock the meter sounded. I turned off engine, tried to restart a few minutes later. Engine would not crank. The next day at home I tried to turn the engine over; nothing. I finally pulled a few plugs and found water in the cylinders.

I have checked the intake manifold and heads finding nothing (visually). I have sent the heads out to be checked. If the heads are fine the next place is the exhaust manifolds and risers. Correct? Is there an easy way to pressure check the manifold and riser?

Any best next steps?

Thanks for any information.


Heads are fine, intake manifold is fine, no noticable breaks in the gaskets, pressure checked the exhaust manifolds with garden hose no issues. My last thought is backwash. My wife backed the boat across the channel before pulling forward to load on trailer. It started to overheat at that point.

With a slow idle can backwash occur when you backup?

[rholmes]

Do you have the flaps installed on the exhaust to prevent backwash?

[Dan K]

From my experience if you had water in the cylinders and you already have the heads of check your pushrods to see if any are bent, you may also have a problem with the crank. Hydrolocking puts a tremendous amount of stress on an engine. Check it out know to avoid bigger problems if you run it with damaged parts.

[Greg Nilles]

yes on the flaps

[Greg Nilles]

The engine did not quit. It was shut down. Tried to restart later and would not turn over.

Push rods look good.