Water damage with a KA-t. salvageable?

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Marahutay
Posts: 93
Joined: Mon Jun 16, 2008 3:55 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan 240SX Fastback

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Greetings Nico,
Long story short, I built a KA motor top to bottom with the intention of forced induction, and then the machine shop I had the motor at experienced a flood and everything inside was under water Including the motor I had them build for me.
I called the shop after the flood to make sure that they had got to work on my motor since it had been submerged for about a day and a half. I was told that "anything that had been damaged had been fixed in anything involved in the flood" THIS WAS MORE THAN A YEAR AGO ALMOST 2YRS.
I have hit many many speed bumps in the process of this project that have set me far behind with my progress and since my girlfriends grandfather owns the shop he let me have my motor sit there until I was ready to take it and drop it in myself when I found a garage i could finally do it at.
Today I head down to the shop to pick this motor up since I recently found a place to finally finish up this project and when I get to the shop I find out that the motor was never cleaned out during the flood. I was then told after this discovery that they will take the whole thing apart and clean it out for me.
This is where my question to you guys comes in to play. IS THIS MOTOR ABLE TO BE FIXED AND USED? he shrugged it off as if the water damage were no big deal and it was totally fixable but i dont believe its quite so simple as cleaning it out. What am i to expect them to find once they take this motor apart?
i am expecting that nearly all of the internals are going to need to be replaced, am i right? Keep in mind this Motor at the time of the flood was fully assembled and ready to be dropped in.


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WDRacing
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Joined: Mon Nov 25, 2002 2:00 am
Car: 95 240SX, 99 BMW 540i, 01 Chevy Express, 14 Ford Escape
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It depends on the level of corrosion. I had an RB get soaked when I was living on Okinawa, it was a spare I had outside and the tarp unassed itself during a storm. It didn't have a valve cover on it, so I had water in the sump etc. After a month or two I pulled it apart just to salvage the pistons for a rebuild. The cylinder bores had some rust growing on them, but I was able to clean it off with a bottle hone. I never did use the motor, but everything that had surface rust on it was able to be cleaned.

It depends on the level of damage done by the rust.

Have them pull it apart and inspect it for you, then have them call you so you can have a loom yourself when it's apart. Feel all the bearing journals and look inside the cylinder bores. Anything you can "feel" is bad and will need to be bored over. Check out the cams as well.

Hopefully they had the motor internals coated thoroughly in assembly lube.

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Jmoore124
Posts: 278
Joined: Wed Dec 12, 2012 4:22 pm
Car: 1995 240sx Ka-t
2003 Saab Linear turbo conv
(Sold) 1989 S13 red top

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I would say it is almost certainly able to be used. The question is, how much work and machining it will take to get to that point. The only way to do that is to tear it down and inspect it. There is a good chance your cams and pistons may need to be replaced, you should be able to salvage your rods. But like WD said, its all about the level of corrosion.

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Marahutay
Posts: 93
Joined: Mon Jun 16, 2008 3:55 pm
Car: 1991 Nissan 240SX Fastback

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thanks for the info guys


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