How?? (+ a story) (archive)

Depends on if the hydraulic material was on the top or bottom of the piston; if below, then it would be going against the design ofr the item (pressure from above, not below). But this also begs why only this one piston and how would they have filled the whole crankcase (and why would it not have stalled the engine blowing so much junk back into the cylinders via the PCV by then - hell, the rubber hoses should have popped before the metal components!!)

SO they probably drove it into a ditch with the engine running - even worse if only one bank submerged, as the other would try to keep it going and "pumping"...? EML should have failed the intake that took the water (hot-wire air-mass sensors don't like being cooled off) but the engine keeps rotating. 8:1 compression plus water = bent metal, then further damage from there as metal/water enter the sump. Also, going from full heat (how many hundred degrees?) to cooled by water would anneal the aluminium in the piston crown, helping make it brittle...

Hearing it? Who knows?

BTW, ahd a recent interesting case of this with a friend with a jap 4wd wagon, where an oil pump bolt fell off, went into the crank, through #3 piston, broke #3 conrod on the way back down, #3 piston went into the crank, shredded, left running on 3 cylinders with remnant conrod still on #3... the engine was running, but VERY noisy. Total rebuild, only internal block component kept was the block itself (rebored to max, cast iron item, though).

So far I have had two mechanics tell me the engine hydrauliced because the crankcase was full of water, oil and gas. This would be like driving it through water. This was due to the piston being shattered. The part that is stumping everyone is what would cause the piston to shatter and would someone driving the car down the road hear this happen.

Dave

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