Piston failure :(

[kinkyafro]

So I was driving to work a couple of weeks ago when I suddenly lost power and limped the car 3 miles to work to the sound of some pretty nasty rattles and clunks. Got it Recovered home and started trying to figure out what was wrong....

Hmmmm...
damaged plug.jpg

Oh dear...


So not quite sure what to do next but I'm leaning towards breaking the car rather then getting a replacement engine.

[Davezj]

so what has actually failed, it looks like oil and water on the cylinder.

was the failed spark plug the cause or result of the failure.

was it caused by running to much boost, and leaning it out.

[kinkyafro]

About 25% of the piston is missing!

No idea what caused it but I am wondering if the coolant ingress was before or after the piston went.

[exevoowner]

That looks nastie have only ever seen one worse when my escort decided to part company with its rings lol

[CANDEE]

Maybe the ringlands gave way with a leanout and did the damage?

[TAR]

coolant in the cylinder wouldn't cause that sort of failure, if that was what you were thinking. The piston would be washed clean if it had been happening for a while. I had an Astra where the head gasket failed and it was letting water in, the piston was as clean as the day it was fitted!

Sorry to hear about this Rich, I hope you manage to sort it one way or another.

[swinks]

Sorry to hear that Rich, very unfortunate...

That looks like detonation. Question is, was it because failing spark plug and misfire, or damage to plug was due to detonation occurred. Oil and coolant traces are due to piston perished.
Unfortunately, our engines can suffer from nasty detonations without any warning signs, i.e. knocking etc.

[Nick Mann]

Ouch. And bummer.

I've seen some pistons in the past with damage from the ringlands after detonation. But they didn't lose quite that much piston!

Future options are up to you, I guess. Replacing the engine is potentially going to cost less than the value of the car. Breaking the car will probably leave you less out of pocket than replacing the engine. I guess the question is what is the rest of the car like and are you ready to move on to another car?

[Davezj]

Surely you can get an engine for about £300 then it is just a case of fitting it.
Or getting someone to do it for you

[kinkyafro]

So I took the heads of the engine today and found this along with some sludge in the cylinder...
IMG_20140921_151335.jpg
I assume the 1cm piece of metal on the spanner is the missing part of the Spark plug above.


So it appears the "missing" bit of piston was misdiagnosis on my part - kinda forgot the cylinder was at an angle and the stuff in the you-tube vid is just a pool of petrol and oil mayo.
Looking at the valves/Piston/Cylinder wall things don't look to bad and this might have been recoverable if I just fished the offending metal bit out and put a new Spark plug in.
IMG_20140921_150917.jpgIMG_20140921_150939.jpgIMG_20140921_151028.jpg

Here's a neighboring piston for comparison
IMG_20140921_150926.jpgIMG_20140921_151014.jpg

Hindsight is a wonderful thing eh

[Nick Mann]

Double bummer. I've just watched the video again and it's still difficult to tell from that what has failed. There is obviously lots of small pits in the piston head. We now know that was caused by the missing plug. With hindsight the question should have been "Why isn't the oil/sludge draining away if the piston is broken?" Or at least suggesting a compression test.

[elnevio]

Some similarities with my trauma at the beginning of 2012.

[kinkyafro]

Interesting Read that Nev my plugs were NGK BKR7EIX's so it's not just a DENSO thing. Think they'd been in there about 4.5 years/30,000 miles So I would have been thinking about changing them along with a 5 year service in 6 months or so.