Hydra-lock, restart.. blown head gasket?

I just drove my truck through a huge water collection in a field, about half way through she stalled. I figured it was because it was hydra-locked.. I wasn't sure, so I tried to restart it.

It fired up after the second shot at the ignition, but it was blowing tons of smoke out of the tailpipe. I assume I have a blown head gasket? Am I right to think that is the problem?

I am not certain what the problem is.. but can you throw your ideas at me.. and if it is the headgasket, how hard would it be able to change out.. ? Is there a chance I damaged anything else while running it out of the puddle after it blew out the gasket?

Any help would be awesome.. since this thing is my baby. Snorkel is totally on the top of my list now.

Just a thought bent valves, bent pushrods. These can occur if you truly hydrolocked it.

Fawk sake.. I hope it isn't anything too silly.. would any of those things cause me to blow so much white smoke? Isn't that usually a large ammount of coolant being burnt?

You need to do a compression test and pressure test the coolant system. look for signs of coolant in the oil or signs of cylinder pressure in the coolant system. This will tell all.

bfred said:

You need to do a compression test and pressure test the coolant system. look for signs of coolant in the oil or signs of cylinder pressure in the coolant system. This will tell all.

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X2 but like I said don't be suprised if you find bent sheet

I take it I will need a shop to do a compression test, since I doubt I will be able to do that myself. I can test the pressure of the cooling system myself..

But I have never tested cylender pressure.

you would save more $ if you just went buy tester youself. a shop is gonna charge you bigtime, and may tell they are not sure till they tear it down. when in dought ask in the forum.

compression test is very easy to do. If you can replace spark plugs , you can do a compression test. A compression tester can be rented cheaply. Just follow the instructions that come with it, and to check a head gasket, do what they call a "leak down test".

White Smoke or Steam? A lot of water left over in the engine would do that, but should have been blown out within a few minutes of operating, at least after revving it up a little.

If its from coolant from a blown headgasket, then you would see coolant level drop soon.

Did your stall or seize? Hydro Lock will stop your engine instantly, which is why it bends stuff up, that would be like the engine seizing, i.e. a violent stall. Stalling would let the motor spin down like you shut if off or it actually stalled out, far less violent, although the motor can miss as it stalls and that could cause some bucking back and forth.

I have stalled a motor driving thru water before, the water simply killed the ignition or motor cooled off so much and being just barely off idle it stalled out. It started back up and ran fine once dried out.

Hate to say it, but the most common damage from a true Hydro-Lock is Bent Rods and Broken Piston Rings. Remember how they say hitting water from more than a 100' fall is like hitting concrete. Its the same for a piston that is moving incredibly fast even at idle. Water barely compresses at all, so when enough water gets into the cylinder, that it takes up more volume then is left over at TDC, it like the piston just slammed into a concrete block.