petrol in oil, what do you reckon?

[casinoblue]

hey,

been trying to start my 16v for a few weeks now, with no luck........

whipped the rocker cover off to triple check cam timing, all ok there, but noticed a strong smell of fuel. dipped my finger in the oil collected in the head, it was well diluted with loads of fuel. checked the dipstick, and the same strong smell of fuel and the level had risen by about 5mm.

dropped the oil, changed filter and refilled with new oil. I'm thinking that the fuel contamination happened from repeated turning over and possibly a faulty 5th injector, as the car was running rich before. am going to do several oil/filter changes once i get the car running, to make sure all the petrol is gone.

anyway, the problem i have now is...........tried turning the car over once after changing the oil. the starter really struggled to turn it over. only tried it briefly once, but i heard a small squeak from the bores when turning.

i'm thinking that the petrol has weeped through the piston rings into the sump, and has taken the oil off the rings with it?
can i add a small amount of oil to each bore through the sparkplug hole to help lubricate the rings? or should i get the head off again and change the rings etc. while i'm at it?

i kind of already know what i should do, was just wondering what you guys would do in this situation.

thanks in advance,
james.

[danny_p]

change oil,  fix 5th injector,  start it and quick rev.     spray a littel oil down plug holes if you like

[Conker]

You could check to see if your cylinders aren't flooded with fuel. How about lowering a piece of string (that won't fray!) down the plug holes and seeing if it comes back up wet?

Also, I would try rolling the car forwards and backwards in 4th gear or something to try and get the pistons to free-up.

Finally, how about a bump start?

[danny_p]

if think it's hydraliced self, remove plugs and cranck the enigne over  that soon removes fuel from cylinders,    btw  don't smoke at the same time

[bundy]

change oil,  fix 5th injector,  start it and quick rev.     spray a littel oil down plug holes if you like

if you do this just beware of the bang, i weren't expecting it and it scared the sh!t out of me!!

[casinoblue]

cheers all,

got it going at the weekend, finally

put a small amount of oil in each bore and turned it over by hand to free it up a bit. jump started it off the mrs's diesel fiesta, and after a couple of goes and a stomp on the accelerator, away it went.

sounded like a spitfire cos i only had the manifold on at the time

thanks for the replies,
james

[DarnPB]

Good job. Now find out why that happened. Its all very well curing the symptoms, but the fault is still there.

[casinoblue]

thanks,

i'm thinking that the excess fuel came from the repeated turning over trying to get it going, but i think there's also a problem with the WUR or 5th injector or both.

i had them both unplugged when trying to start, just incase of flooding again. tried plugging them back in after it started, but would only turn over.

is there any way of testing the WUR and/or 5th injector to prove either way? am going to try starting with each plugged/unplugged at the weekend as a process of elimination, but any test procedure would be most usefull.

have still got to bleed the coolant, set ignition timing, and the list is endless

cheers

[needtogofaster]

Had very similar prob with one of my 8v digifant's don't know much about valvers though, turned out after many many hours confusion and swapping parts ecu included was a bad earth, can defo cause strange n severe probs, try taking out the fuel pump fuse or even replace with temporarily a switch, turn on swith + ignition let pump prime turn off switch turn over engine with no eccess fuel to kill startup, quickly turn on switch or replace fuse to keep running.This worked for me but is not a cure i found the fault by chance when changing the gearbox and cleaning all major earth points. GOOD LUCK.

[casinoblue]

cheers for the reply,

the fuel pump is operating normally, e.g. priming for two seconds then stopping. the car does eventually start with the WUR and 5th injector unplugged, so i'm thinking one of these at fault. haven't had chance to look at it this week due to crap weather, but will be replacing all the earths as a matter of course if it ever stops raining 

ta