First drive and Zed died... Help!

Awe i beg to differ. The NA engine is pretty solid, maybe hurt but not cooked (until further investigation). Just talking from my own experience here. No doubt it all depends on age, care and degradation. But as ive told the story before, ill summarize.

Years and years ago. Back when the 89 model zed was not much older then 10 haha. God thats along time now...shit.

Anyways, old mans zed. Mum drive it to work. Fine. Driving it home, pop! One of the front inlet/outlet 3 inch long hoses split. Coolant pretty much all gone. What did mum do. Drove it home. Wasnt a quick 2 minute drive either, but more like a 20-25 minute drive.... WTF!!!!

Got it into the drive way, worst sounding engine ever. Never heard such noises from an engine "cooling down". Each pop or screech you could imagine it yelling at you, "fark that hurts".

Next day in the arvo, it was still rather warm....!!!!

Inspected, fixed the hose. Than prayed!

What do you know, it started again. And idled, held temperature. And then proceeded to live on for many many years after, up until it was sold off.

So, to recap. Do some investigatory work and then see what needs to happen next. Chin up. Beer down.

 

The difference here is he continually restarted and drove a little further each time unitl it was totally gone.

 

True, its not good cricket. But I would have thought the continual drive for some period would also be detrimental to the life of the engine. I know we got very lucky with not having a seized engine. Maybe he has too. I know its far from ideal, but who really know until further investigation.

If anything, just trying to keep the guys hopes up a little. Instead of kicking him while down already.

Any major overheating problem spells disaster, but you can get lucky.

 

Coolant is one thing, over cooking your oil is what totally shags engines during an overheat, along with detonating mixtures and frying crowns and ring lands. Post overheat it's the heads cooling at a different rate to the block which will warp them and chew HG's. Water cooled engines just don't have the oil capacity or oil-cooling capacity to survive a coolant blowout and continued running, let along accelerating to hear the metal crunching noises that it's making.

 

Thanks for trying to keep my hope up a little Sanouske, it helped for a while but like AndyMac said it doesn't look good. Think I'm pretty much screwed.

Will take all the advice on here about checking the oil and coolant, maybe look into a plenum pull, but I think its hopeless... will still give it a try, but I don't like my chances as I've never been lucky. Oh well

Thanks again guys.

 

Not going to dispute any of that as you're correct. He's done more worse off things than what we experienced with zero coolant, but the cooking of oil and constant overheated environment, cooling of the engine/heads (potential warping), and the simple fact that my mother was driving at the time, lead to no hope in hell of it ever running again. As to her, a car is a - b item and if its not a 4x4, who cares. But yet it lived on...

 

Dead as a door nail mate.

Start searching for 2nd engine that still works.

 

Well if your totally disheartened now, then if it falls into the remote possibility that it can be saved, just imagine how happy your going to be.

btw, if your in Sydney, there are a few of us who are happy to give you a final verdict.

 

Yeah I guess you have a good point there. If I think there is no hope and there is, then I'd be over the moon, but if there really isn't any hope, it won't come as a surprise.

Yeah I'm in Sydney, near Penrith, so I might see if there are any members who are willing to make the drive out here to possible give me the final verdict.

Thanks

 

Sounds like it's well and truely rooted... the stalling could have been fuel vapourising in the rails if it was that hot...metalic sounds deffinatley detonation.

Drail the oil and flush the coolant...try starting it with a set of leads.

I suggest looking for a replacement motor.

 

Recharge the battery & give it a cold compression check, this will tell you if the engines damaged.
You will be looking for all cylinders to have a similar reading, as the engine is cold expect readings to be lower than specs.
If you have no compression, or very little, there's no point in going any further.
If you do have compression, fill it with water & pressure test the cooling system at 23psi.
If it won't hold that pressure look for the leak.

 

Sorry to hear about your Zed. Hopefully it won't be too expensive to fix

I guess I can only add my story to this. I was in a very similar position when I bought my Zed. I had a pre-purchase inspection done (which was rushed at the time due to my excitement) and I was told there was a small coolant leak, but it could wait.

At this point I should really have had it replaced and had the car thoroughly looked over. What I did was drive home and show my parents my brand new car. I had probably driven it 30mins or so before I heard the hissing sound in the driveway. I turned it off after it started pouring coolant into the drive way and it spent the rest of the weekend on my parents front lawn.

Turns out it was THE bastard hose and after the pressure test it was weakened so bad that it literally burst open.

We've all made bad choices when we're excited or not thinking straight... but don't worry about it mate... i'm sure it will work out for the best in the end.

 

Thanks for the advice guys... since I have no experience or knowledge with any mechanical work, I'll be looking for help from some of the Sydney people on the forum... so if you can help see how bad the damage is, please let me know, and if it can be fixed (fingers crossed) I hope people can help me with that too, so I can learn what to do for next time, still so new to the Zeds, so don't know anything...

Thanks again

 

Beat me to it Arv. I was out solving Anti's blown coolant hose yesterday too, heh.

If Arv can't make it BlackZX, I'm literally next door in St Marys, let me know as I have a compression test kit as well.

From what I've read though, chances are very slim... sorry mate

MoulaZX

 

Hey man, thanks.

Yeah I know the chances are slim, but I would like to know for sure I've killed my car. If either you or pennyarvs can help me confirm I'm screwed, that would be good in a way, then no more false home. Thanks

This is still getting me down as I haven't even got to enjoy the car yet but I've already spent so much on it. Sux

 

I can do one evening this week, weekend is booked out, but early evening can work if we can tee something up with Blackzx

 

I'll be free weeknights on thursday & friday, so if you guys want to come down then, its fine with me, but no pressure. Thanks though. Pm me when ya'll want to check the damage & deliver the news. Thanks

 

Lemme know when, man! I'll be there as soon as I finish with my patients. Just give me a holla whenever...


Arvin :zlove:

 

So AndyMac came down to my place yesterday to inspect the damage, thanks for that by the way, and the prognosis was not good.

Seems like the head gasket is screwed, so couldn't do much more.

According to AndyMac, would be easier to get a new engine fitted in, but that is definitely not in the budget, so I think I'm going to have to sell the Zed as a project car.

It sucks, since the car is nice, very nice to look at, only problem now is the engine. Even just got it registered until Dec 2011.

Will advertise it as a project car with a blown head gasket, will be super cheap, and see if someone can take it and make it the beast it should be...

So sad... but with circumstances the way they are for me, now, it would be better for me to sell the Zed than fix it up, and maybe look at getting another Zed someday in the future...

 

IF you jump down to the RTA or watever it's called in NSW you can get a refund back on some of your Rego costs.

My advise is if you want to see any return on this Zed than a) keep it and get a replacement motor when you can afford it or b) part it out on the forum because that are a lot of zeds with blown head gaskets and only a select person would work on it.

if you do want to sell it shoot me a pm with your price because i can work on a head gasket (done a few lately)

The zed is an awesome ride and i feel for you having this happen.