OKRoad Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 (sorry if this is in the wrong area of the forum, first post here) I was out on the trail in my 92 pathy with a VG30e and got a little overconfident and drove through a puddle a bit too deep for my stock-mobile. My cold air intake took in some water and the engine locked up. I was thinking/hoping I bent a valve, but after getting the timing belt off, both cams turn normally, but the crank is still completely frozen. My next step is to drain the oil and look for water/coolant, is there anything else I should do? Any chance I didn't crack the block and/or this isn't going to require an engine swap? I don't know much frankly, just trying to work through this with my handy-dandy Chilton manual and forum-help. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpecialWarr Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 Did you try to turn the crank with the plugs out or in? Did you leave it sitting there for a while or was this "water crossing" very recently? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OKRoad Posted February 16, 2015 Author Share Posted February 16, 2015 Did you try to turn the crank with the plugs out or in? Did you leave it sitting there for a while or was this "water crossing" very recently? The plugs are out, and the crossing was about two weeks ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
byob Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 My guess would be a bent rod. You will not get water in the oil unless there is catastrophic damage. Water injestion does not compress like air. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OKRoad Posted February 17, 2015 Author Share Posted February 17, 2015 If that does turn out to be the case how difficult would replacing a rod be? I've done a couple t belts, half a tranny swap; would this be something I could tackle? Am I going to be banging my head against the thing for a month if I get into the block? (given that I have a vg30e sitting in the garage and a local Nissan guy who could do the swap cheap) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dma251 Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 I'd try to pickup one of numerous pathfinders on Seattle Craigslist with a good motor and bad auto. There is one in Monroe right now for $400. Several more for $500. You'll have a much great chance of success getting back on the road by just swapping out a stock motor, plus you will have a great parts rig left over to pick from in the future or collect scrap value from ($200-$300). There's no telling what kind of damage you are going to find once you're inside your motor, and you may still need to machine work done. Just too much headache.... Thats my .02 cents, anyhow. Been there, done that, and still have the knuckle scars to prove it. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OKRoad Posted February 17, 2015 Author Share Posted February 17, 2015 I'd try to pickup one of numerous pathfinders on Seattle Craigslist with a good motor and bad auto. There is one in Monroe right now for $400. Several more for $500. You'll have a much great chance of success getting back on the road by just swapping out a stock motor, plus you will have a great parts rig left over to pick from in the future or collect scrap value from ($200-$300). I'm actually closer to Portland here in the Columbia Gorge, but the idea works on Portland Craigslist too, and it's looking more and more like that's what I'm gonna do. If my tranny swap was an indicator of the difficulty of this, that may be more knuckle scars than I want to pick up right now. Thanks for the help everyone! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpecialWarr Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 If you have an operable motor and guy who can swap it for cheap I would go down that route. Then you have whatever time you'll need to fix / upgrade the other motor..... and that's my two centavos! ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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