Do NOT crank the engine on the starter until you've turned it over by hand through two or three revolutions at least. If you get to the point where running the starter is something to actually try, disable the fuel system.

 

Here’s a picture of the valves they all look into it in working order. I placed an order from numbers #1-8 and #5 & #6 are pictured together.

 

Here are some of cylinder heads w scope down spark plug hole. Engine turns over by hand and seems to be smooth and consistent. I’m going to spray seafoam down into cylinders and suck that **** out w a vaccine line as best as I can. Any other ideas more valuable input would be appreciated. Thanks


Cylinders not in order but I’m sure numbers 1-4.

 

So you're worried about a hydro-lock engine and you're going to dump fluid into the cylinders...

Yeah, you do you.

Pictures of the valve stems through the ports are all but meaningless. Valve damage doesn't come from hydro-lock, it comes from piston impact. That didn't happen.

If the engine seems smooth by hand, go ahead and crank it with the starter, leaving the plugs out, with no fuel being fed. Stop cranking with any clunk or bang noise. A bent conrod might not interfere with a slow turn, but its presence will be very evident when cranking.

Don't even think about worrying about cleaning the inside of the cylinders. That's what happens in there, and Seafoam isn't going to change anything.

 

1-4

 

Pictures of the pistons are irrelevant. Good job getting them, I guess, but useless information. Hydro-lock damage is not in the combustion chamber, it's in connecting rods and bearings. You need to look in the bottom of the engine, and to inspect bearings (main and rod) you have to take stuff apart.

It is apparent that you don't understand what has happened. PLEASE, find someone who does! You're chasing nothing that matters.

 

^^^ This... quit while you're ahead (cranking by hand) and get the car to a pro. Be happy it cranks by hand for now. You've reached your limit and are in over your head. Trying to save you any more pain.

maw

 

Honestly tearing things apart or having somebody else tear the engine apart or down as you guys reference doesn’t seem very appealing yet. I have reason to believe that the engine has not experienced catastrophic engine failure. Running is it a compression test and cleaning out the cylinder heads is something that isn’t very hard to do and would give me a little bit more information as to what’s going on here. I have a family friend who eat nuts and bolts for breakfast and that’s no bull****.He’s mechanically inclined and knows what the hell he’s talking about and he thinks that all that noise about the engine being done for is just noise.

I have a lot of time and money and my self invested and I’m going to remain positive until there’s a reason not to. If you look at other M156 ownersWho experienced hydrolocking on this forum have not all experience catastrophic failure. In fact most of them have fixed their engines with minimal damage sustained! I don’t know what it is about MB world that has so many people on here that are negative or so quick to pass that negative mentality forward. It’s lame AF. And it’s sad because there’s a lot of people on this forum or this website that have years of Expert knowledge and actual in the field experience.

Its not the situation that my cars in right now or the money that it might take to get it fixed, that’s all material, What looms the biggest is how other people feel obligated to try and pile on and make the situation out to be the worst case scenario. That’s what I don’t get the most,That’s what I don’t understand the most. So in that light running a compression test and cleaning out the cylinder heads is an easy job when I look at the bigger picture. Karma is what they say it is and I’ll never be that guy. So anybody that has actual mechanical advice not just an opinion I greatly appreciate that knowledge because I know it’s not just talking... it’s been earned. Thanks againAnd stay positive if you might be in my situation.

 

Take stuff apart or take the car to a pro isn’t mechanical instruction. No bullish. That’s an opinion or at best advice. If either of you 2 are mechanics or techs then what are you really offering. Think about it. ... Advice or an opinion is a suggestion or recommendation and is another way of giving advice that lacks direction. There is a distinction there so distinguish the two before you reply. That’s what I’m looking for so understand that is makes forums like these valuable. Not the other.

 

Also not trying to push that sludge out the back of the car. Sorry

 

I’m not a mechanic. My car is not broken.

Good luck.

maw

 

"Lacks direction???" Seriously? Every post in this thread except your own is pointing to exactly what needs to be done!!!!

If there is a bent connecting rod, a compression check will destroy bearings. I withdraw what I said about cranking it if it turns easily by hand, as you obviously don't have the experience to make that judgement.

Also, running a compression test points out the fact that YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE CHASING! There will be literally NO combustion chamber damage by hydro-locking, unless you actually broke a piston. ALL of the damage will be bearings and rods. You're examining the top end, which is USELESS.

Nobody is trying to make it the worst case scenario... IT ALREADY IS! Hydro-locking is about the worst thing you can do to an engine, other than actually breaking something internally.

As far as being negative, you've made it plain that you don't believe us, that you think the engine is OK, but all of your "troubleshooting" is ABSOLUTELY WRONG for what happened to your engine. And this is on top of your prior fuel injector cleaning, which probably caused the issue in the first place.

We're trying to help you. We're trying to point you in the right direction. Cars just simply do not obey the rules of wishful thinking.

Suppose you decide the engine turns over by hand OK (which apparently you already have.) Then you decide to run a completely unnecessary compression test, and say that compression is OK on all 8 cylinders. I would not be the least surprised if it was! But you have not inspected the bearings, and you have not looked into the bottom end to see if any of the rods are bent, even a little bit. The tiniest deflection in a connecting rod will destroy the bearing, possibly even throw that rod off the crank our out from under the piston, and then your engine will NOT be repairable. Right now, it IS repairable, but proceeding on the assumption that everything's actually OK, when you haven't even looked, is mind-bogglingly dumb. Sorry, but there it is.

Everything you've looked at is in the top end, which suffers NOTHING by being hydro-locked. You're saying the engine is OK because everything up top looks OK. There's no connection to the top end and what happens in a hydro-lock. Your path is no different than "The car pulls left when I brake. Nothing's wrong, though, because the headlights work!" No relation between the two!

And the statement, "not trying to push that sludge out the back of the car..." Where do you think it's going to go if you loosen it with some chemical and then eventually get the engine running? If you'd ever seen the inside of a combustion chamber, you'd know that what's in those pictures is the LEAST of your worries.

 

I’m not in the mood to debate some guy who for alll I know works at Walmart. I’m good. I have already called, spoke with known professionals ( which you are not) and the course of action I’m taking was suggested by “pros”. I was looking for additional professional advice but clearly that is a commodity here. I appreciate you taking the time to reply but I don’t think I will be taking any advice from you at any point in this process. Thanks again bro have a good one.

 

Not trying to be a dick just don’t have time for bs

 

@Sal Astorga What is your next step?

 

Just let him finish off this engine folks...It's probably got a short rod and may run again for just a little while if he can get it back together. Get your popcorn ready!

It's not uncommon here for owners with ZERO mechanical knowledge to ask for help, then shun the advice because it's not what they WANT to hear.

He's already wasting time on it, next he'll start throwing money at it...until it goes BOOM.

And Sal, wfooshe is 100% correct. You should appreciate his patience because you've worn mine out.

 

Don't chase anything more, do a compression test and see what you get. If you bent a rod, you already gotta take it apart so bearing damage isn't a concern for me. Washing down the cylinders with seafoam is a waste of time. If you have a bent rod or 3 you will need to take it apart anyway, much easier to clean it then. Compression test before you waste any more of your time on a potentially hurt engine.

 

I haven't taken a car or motorcycle to a shop in over 40 years unless it was warranty or insurance work. Maintenance and repairs are 100% DIY for me. Don't even think about presuming that I don't have any skills around mechanical bits. I've repaired head gaskets and transmission internals, rebuilt multi-piston brake calipers, replaced hydraulic suspension components on my S55, changed out the entire suspension on my Miata, done numerous timing belts, water pumps, alternators, a few engine rebuilds from lawn mower to Mopar V8. In my first post in this thread I told you I'd been through a hydro-lock.

But I obviously don't know what I'm talking about, simply because I won't say what you want to hear.

OK, here it is: There is absolutely nothing wrong with your engine, I'm absolutely sure of it. Just put the plugs back in and fire it up, it'll be fine. Mebbe replace the injectors first so it doesn't lock again...

Yeah, I can't say it with a straight face; I'm not a politician.

You are no longer worth the effort. Buh-bye. Not even gonna say good luck, because you don't deserve it.

 

Sal:

These guys gave good advice if you have suffered hydrolock. Start with the obvious likely next steps.

Damage would MOST LIKELY be in the bottom end of the engine where the big metal parts live: crank, bearings, rods, wrist pins, rod caps, piston skirts. You can't see these from above. ( I suppose you could drop the pan and peek from afar.) If something sheared off and dropped into the oil pan, it might not show up in an oil change if it landed on the baffle plate. There is a tiny chance that top end components would be affected. Valves, stems, heads and cams are probably all fine. How much time and money do you want to spend checking those? Compression testing won't show much, unless you blew out a head gasket. Whatever damage occurred will throw off tolerances below decks, and accelerate destruction under normal operation.

If you don't have wrenching skills, patience, a spare garage bay, spare car to drive, engine hoist/engine stand, lots of tools, or else lots of beer money to throw at friendly mechanics for their time, then you should ditch the engine and buy a replacement for your friendly tech to install (much beer money). Maybe you will get a nice replacement engine with free injectors and spark plugs with it! Otherwise, if you have most of these spare resources, then enjoy the following experiment (that I wouldn't waste my own time on with mine).

Forget about Seafoaming the probably already-destroyed engine. Total waste of your time. Those pictures were normal.

Do you (or your mechanic) hear any odd noises (scraping) when turning the shaft manually with the socket wrench on the crank bolt? Is there any binding?
If not, then you could do your compression test that you seem to really want to do (fuel pump relay removed, fuel disconnected) with the intake back on. I suppose put the dead injectors back in to hold the air; hopefully they are stuck closed.
As you need to use the starter motor to do the compression test 8 times, you have to hook up to battery. The ECU might prevent the starter from turning if there are lots of error codes. (I don't know).

Every time you run a compression test for each cylinder, you should be listening for clanking/scraping/clunking/grinding/marbles/uneveness. Misalignments and broken parts show up as extra noises.

Assuming you hear nothing bad and you get good compression on all 8, then drop the oil pan. Not doable with an E55/E63 without removing the subframe, but I think you can get it out on an S if you slightly pull up the engine. If you don't find connecting rods/bolts/metal shavings in the pan, and you don't see any obvious bent components from below, maybe you just lucked out. You will not be able to see mucked up crank bearings or on rod/crank bearing surface damage unless you remove their caps (...which you won't want to attempt on your back with the engine in place.) Note if your oil is diluted with lots of fuel to confirm your "injectors were sticking open" theory.

Still feeling lucky? Put the oil pan back on, fill the crankcase, put everything back together with new OE injectors. Reattach the fuel rail. Install the fuel pump relay. Flash the ECU back to stock. Clear all DTCs. Try starting the car.

When the car fires up, start listening for ghoulish sounds in the first 5 seconds when real-life stresses will find the weakest points of failure. If anything rattles funny, shut it down and pull the engine out for bottom end repairs. (or buy a replacement). If not, then listen for the next 30 seconds, then minutes, then hours, then days, then weeks until your engine blows up. You will never know until it happens.

That's it. Some beefy engines have been known to survive hydrolock. Many do not.

(I also request you put more carriage returns in your posts to separate things into paragraphs to make it easier to read your information on this forum.)
(I am not a mechanic, but have seen inside the guts of my S55 engine/transmission, as well as 5 other vehicles in 40 years of unprofessional wrenching. 1000s of hours reading shop manuals, watching youtube, and corporate training videos invested. Feel free to ignore my advice and time spent thinking about your problem.)

 

All I can say is, when my friends buy flood cars to fix and resell, "drop the pan, let it drain, check for metal and see if you see anything in the pan or if anything is bent" is step one... most flood SClasses are victims of lazy insurance adjusters only.

But again, I'm not a mechanic. My car is not broken.

GL

maw

 

I don’t want to just find my way through this problem. I’m reaching out here because I need it. I’m not asking for luck just solid and sound instruction. With that lil whatever said GrepAwk thanks. I do appreciate the time you took to help another stranger who is not as good with a wrench. I can appreciate all the replies good or no so. So thanks again to all you guys.

I don’t want to spend a lot of time and money crawling Down the wrong fox hole. GA you did clarify what the others were maybe trying to say in pervious posts. Thanks.Are you suggesting not to run a CT because it’s a pointless thing to do or it can further f up the engine? Or both (slight lol)? I have a spare car (S430 )and money. Patience’s...not so much of unfortunately. I will try more patient will this whole process.

When he turned the engine he said it felt normal... I gave it a turn and to me it felt smooth I didn’t notice or feel /hear binding. Should I run that test? If yes would it be stupid to put a strip of duct tape over the injector holes and wrap the rail with towels to soak up fuel in case?I will let you know if I indeed do find fuel In The oil. I will also be looking for metal or shavings that have broke loose. Will post pics.

The whole cleaning thing is because the cylinders were covered in this black (sludge) ****. I don’t post the worst of the pics because I thought I was looking for overworked metal. Oops. I’d did draw concern from my friend who was there helping me; more like showing me how to or making sure all goes well as possible. He was concerned that all of that stuff coming out the back and can foul off the catalytic converter‘s. Is that a legitimate concern?

My take today after reading is that removing the oil pan will shed a lil light. After that I think I will attempt to do a compression test. If I find nothing there but gas. I will get back here tomorrow evening. Thanks again for ur time. GN

 

The last part makes me not surprised at the first parts, which are just wrong.

Bent rods will 100% show up on a compression test. A shorter rod will reduce compression on the affected cylinder compared to the others. I have seen 20-30% drop on water intrusion engines on the affected cylinders. It's very easy to confirm with minimal disassembly.

Injectors don't seal anything on a port fueled engine like the 156 as far as compression is concerned. Only on DI motors.

We used to have an electronic compression test function in Xentry, which spun the motor over on the starter and tracked rpm by cylinder, meant you could not even remove plugs and get a nice read on the mechanical health of the bottom end. But they deleted that for AMG models.

 

If you open the engine up before you compression test it, you are wasting your time. I'm a tech, I have done this before, yet you just keep skipping around and picking and choosing advice that fits your intentions. I've tried to be helpful, but at this point I think I'm done here. Good luck.

 

Thanks, Joe. Listening and learning.

 

Way too temperamental. It’s really something. Asking a question is what the site is for?... Debates or information gathering is key on these forums. Wtf is up here? I’m not pretending to know more than anyone I’m just trying work on a car . That’s it! This is insane. I’ll take the advice that’s been given thank you. I wish it wasn’t this confrontational.