Sorry for the long post ahead of time. On the way home today it was raining heavily and caused my street to flood. For most this is frightening....I was a bit giddy to be honest. So I wade my way into water that is at MOST 2/3 up the tires. I am moving swiftly and a bit faster than I should (nothing crazy, yes you can beat me after you answer the post). The engine stalled with no noticeable sound. Luckily I was almost through when it happened and my momentum carried me to the entrance of my driveway. I had to wait 15 minutes for the engine to turn over. Tried every 5 minutes. For the first 5 seconds or so the idle was very rough and then it smoothed out but as soon as I hit the gas, the peddle and engine shudder slightly. There is a decent amount of smoke coming out of the exhaust (not steam, it lingers too long and has a strong smell not of burning rubber just regular fume smell). I didn't try to start it after i parked because i was afraid running it might be doing damage. Can't hurt to be safe....I hope. I know petrol engines don't like to swim but come on.....Hydro-lock? anything to check on or change you guys think? I won't be touching it until I hear back. again sorry for the rambling just wanted to be thorough.

 

Did the SES (check engine) light come on? Sounds like you got something that wasn't completely sealed wet. If you got any codes they might point you in the direction of exactly what you flooded.

 

Of course I write an essay and fail to mention something simple haha, sorry. No i did not get any codes/lights. All light bulbs on the dash panel are working to my knowledge so I don't believe any code is being thrown to a burnt out light.

 

"Dissapointed, embarrassed, concerned" - that pretty much sums up disco ownership right there.

Did it die while the exhaust was still under water? If so you may have had water flow into the catalytic converters, which will take some time to dry...not sure if that will ruin them but the smoke/steam will go on for some time.

Have you checked your air filter for moisture? If it's wet you may have ingested water into the engine. If it's dry, you may luck out and find it runs ok after the electronics dry...or not, hard to say.

 

Discowest: not long after my second post on this thread I remembered a video I saw made by Justin from lucky8 where he sunk his disco and pulled out a soggy air filter and shook it off, should have thought of that hours ago. For personal reasons I'm tied to the phone until tomorrow morning....when it rains it pours HAHA what a pun......anyway thank you. I'm thinking/hoping its water that will be dried out and spit out. Soggy air filter not letting much air through maybe causing the rough engine....aw to hell with it i'll go give it a try now....just be very quick. Thank you for the replies West and Dcarr.

 

Quickish Update: Air filter moisture.....yes....like a sponge after dish washing and it got wet 4 hours ago haha. It turned over fine maybe a bit of a low battery from starting over and over I'll bet. It's ok at idle but every few seconds it'll gasp for air with a big rev drop and come back up for a few more seconds. I put it in neutral and gave it some gas for a bout 6 or 7 seconds and it worked like a charm but when it back to idle it started its asthma attack again. Just not getting enough air through the soggy filter. New paper filter tomorrow and going to read the SES light that just came on, on this start up. Thank you guys again for the guiding hand. Will follow up tomorrow after work.

 

Yup, you sucked water into the engine, Justin was able to do it because he was driving SLOW.
Thast what you do when driving in deep water, drive slow, just fast enough to make a bow wake, the bow wake actually makes a cavity under the engine keeping it dry.
Drive to fast through the water and it goes everywhere.

THIS is the proper way to drive through deep water.
Notice the bow wake.

‪Down by the river‬‏ - YouTube

 

Thought that may be case, although you shouldn't have had to worry about water ingestion at any speed with the depth you drove through, not in an off road vehicle anyway. I've driven through water that deep in a ford escape with my foot to the floor and water flying 15 ft in the air without any water issues, and it makes no pretense of being a "real" 4x4, so don't beat yourself up too bad on trying to have a little fun, you just can't do that in a disco I guess. Maybe a snorkel would help, unless your problem also included an electrical issue as well.

Hope you can get it fixed, keep us updated on what the problem ends up being.

 

It sounds like you figured this out. It didn't hydrolock but you soaked the air filter and injested enough water to cause misfire. The SES code will be "misfire causing excessive emmissions" etc. If you put in a dry air filter and run the vehicle down the freeway, it will dry out whatever water might be left in the instake manifold and exhaust.

 

if it were only 2/3 the way up the tires it shouldnt have gotten into the airbox unless you were going way too fast or it's not sealed properly. take apart all the hoses on the intake including the MAF. the MAF has a resoivoir on the bottom of it dump the water out of there. dry everything put it back together and cross your fingers.