SATURN MOTOR KILLER HELP

[Mark Oliver]

NEED HELP!!!



Purchased a used Saturn 97 SL2 (for college student), had the vehicle serviced at a Saturn dealer, replaced belt pulley assy, motor mounts and a few other odds and ends.



Brought the vehicle home and cleaned the car and engine bay. Used a cleaning kit for engines. The kit called for rinsing the engine with water and drying before applying prep-cleaner. I’ve done this before to my other vehicles to include my ST and my 98 Saturn SW2.



After some time (an hour or so) the car began to run very poorly. I had thought I pulled a vacuum hose or something but all was as should be. Figured I must have gotten something wet and was just going to let it sit. Here’s the tough part. I left for a few hours to go watch the Padres. When I got back I decided to see if the soaked parts had dried out. Car still ran crappy. It was if a plug was fouled or bad gas. I figured since I washed it maybe there was a spark plug wire not fully connected. I started by removing the first spark plug wire and the cylinder that houses the plug wire and spark plug was filled with water. All 4 housings or plug area had some amount of water in them.



I removed the water and used electronic parts cleaner on the plug wires. I took a high speed chamois to remove the water from the bottom of the spark plug/wire housing area.



(Water leaked into the plug/wire housing through small cracks in the plastic cover the plug wires attach to.)



I am looking for tech help. As far as I know water should not have past further then the plug housing. As pass through to the cylinder head.



Any suggestions to keep from further damaging the engine?



Should the oil be drained and inspected for water?



Any other advice would be greatly appreciated.



It’s 1219 Sunday morning and I’m done…



Thanks.



XMark3

 

[Tom Schindler]

My Escort GT used to do the same thing. I assume that Saturn engine is a DOHC engine. The water in the plug holes is the culpret. To get my EGT running right, I just had to drive it. It would take about 25 miles before it just all of a sudden started running right. I guess it took that long to dry itself out.



I went as far as replacing the wires, it still did it. To fix the problem permintly, I never washed the engine again.





Tom

 

[Dan gelb]

I had same problem with wifes Hyundia used one of those cans of Gunk engine degreaser and it ran like crap for about a week glad i traded it in for the ST even if the payment tripled

 

[brandon mena]

Try removing the spark plugs and spraying them with carb cleaner (or just changing them while your at it, they're cheap enough) and spray carb cleaner in moderate amounts in each spark plug hole, cleaning the areas pretty well. Then lay a towel over the spark plug wells and crank the engine a few times. You'll see all sorts of grossness on the towel when your done. This should dry out the cylinder heads as well as clean out alot of carbon. I did this to most of the cars I own as part of a regular tune up and never had a problem with it. I just figured the cleaner the better right? This should get rid of any moisture that could be left. As for the wires, try laying them out in the sun for a few hours if needed. Inspect all other electrical sockets and contacts especially near any coil packs or the distributor (if equipped).

 

[Deleted deleted]

You fried the plug wires. Did the same thing when I tried washing the engine on my wife's Mazda 626. The water shorted out your plug wires. A new set should fix you up.