2000 C2 Cab 68k miles - Think I lost my engine

[phillipj]

Okay,

I just bought my car 3 months ago. I was driving yesterday and the coolant light came on. I put distilled water in the coolant tank and the light went off. I noticed some crud floating in the water,

I drove home last night in the pouring rain and thought I would check it this morning. Bad , bad news. There is oil in my coolant resivoir and the oil is foamy on the dipstick.

I had no loss of power of CEL's when driving it. I put more water in this morning and it seems to be leaking out from the area that would be diagnosed as a faulty water pump.

I know from reading the horror stories on this site that water in the oil is a death sentence.

Is this true? Suggestions on what to do next? My wife thinks I'm an idiot for buying a car that is known to have this kind of failure.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Edited November 27, 2008 by phillipj

[txhokie4life]

What may have happened is that your engine has overheated due to the water pump failure.

Then either one of the head gaskets blew -- or one of the freeze plugs in your cylinder heads blew.

Either way water and oil end up mixing.

This happened to a '00 Boxster S that I bought that had been diagnosed as a cracked cylinder liner.

If water and oil mixed -- your likely to have a rebuild on your hands -- If done right ~$1.5k+ in parts

plus labor.

m

Okay,

I just bought my car 3 months ago. I was driving yesterday and the coolant light came on. I put distilled water in the coolant tank and the light went off. I noticed some crud floating in the water,

I drove home last night in the pouring rain and thought I would check it this morning. Bad , bad news. There is oil in my coolant resivoir and the oil is foamy on the dipstick.

I had no loss of power of CEL's when driving it. I put more water in this morning and it seems to be leaking out from the area that would be diagnosed as a faulty water pump.

I know from reading the horror stories on this site that water in the oil is a death sentence.

Is this true? Suggestions on what to do next? My wife thinks I'm an idiot for buying a car that is known to have this kind of failure.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

[phillipj]

How was your problem diagnosed?

What was the cost for labor?

Thanks for your help

Phillip

[txhokie4life]

That is a long story :-)

Basically we tore the engine down to the bearings....... In the process we found the liners to be in perfect condition,

took us a while to notice the missing plugs in the heads, and worked our way back to figure out why. At more than

hands length -- you really couldn't tell the pully was sheared off the water pump -- so it didn't stick out as an issue.

But upon closer inspection it became obvious. Now why it sheared off -- who knows -- bad bearing, weak shaft, both?

I also have a local mechanic I am working with who's rates are very reasonable.

I'm not sure how many hours we've got into it so far ~50 to tear down and diagnose,

additional ~$500 at the machine shop for valve job and polishing. I paid ~$3000 in parts at sunsetporsche,

found a few things on Ebay -- but I'm doing a lot more than just addressing the water pump failure.

I also paid $911 to LnEngineering for their upgraded IMS.

Next week the process is to put it back together starts. Maybe another 50 hours?

He asked me to join him and watch and learn next week -- gotta figure out how to make time from

work to do that -- once in a lifetime opportunity!

m

Edited November 28, 2008 by txhokie4life

[phillipj]

Thanks for the great info,

The overheating (water pump) scenario sounds plausible. Interesting enough though I didn't get any warnings that I was overheating. I certainly wouldn't have continues to drive the car if I did. Temp was normal and oil pressure was normal.

When I drove the car home (the last time I drove it) it was running fine. I obviously haven't started it since I saw the oil in the coolant resivoir.

This would lead me to believe that hopefully the damage is limited.

Any other insights you may have would be greatly appreciated

Thanks again!

Phillip