Carver Owners Forum

In a rush to get out of the Marina, a head of Hurricane Matthew, and into our Hurricane hole, the raw water inlet for the port motor was not opened and the motor seems to be cratered. Locked up, oily water in the bilge. The mains are mid 1980's 9.0 International Harvesters. Not sure where to go from here. scrap the boat. Try to find someone to attempt to rebuild the motor? Look for another one? New motors? Any ideas?

At this point, it's all speculation unless you do some diagnostics or pull the engine and have it torn down to assess whether it's worth rebuilding or not. Sorry to have to welcome you aboard here under such circumstances. Keep us posted.

A experienced mechanic came out and said the motor probably had internal damage cause if it was hydro-locked he would have been able to move it a little at least one way. I was hoping a blown head gasket. One of the freeze plugs popped out of the block and it looks like this is where the water and oil exited. There was no water in the fresh water system and half the motor oil was gone. I replaced the freeze plug and Added water and oil and tried to crank the motor. No luck. Starter engaged but couldn't turn it. The water and oil did remain in place though.

It doesn't sound good. The water and oil remained in place because you never managed to turn the engine over. For oil to come out of the frost plug, it would have to get into the cooling system somehow which is isolated from oil passages. Sounds like there may be a crack or break in the block. Unless they're 100% sure there is internal damage (sounds like there is), I'd be expelling the water from the cylinders if it's hydrolocked by removing the injectors, then turn her over by hand and see what happens. May have had a rod snap and punched a hole in her. That would explain the frost plug blowing off, it would have been the cooling circuit/path being presurized by a compression stroke. This all happens instantly. The plugs are the weakest link so they would pop off if this was the case. That or a rod punched it out. If she has a hole in her, she's toast. If you can turn her by hand, remove the head and see if there is any visible damage. If they suspect the worst, and the engine has to come out, they may have to dismantle some first anyway so......

Thanks Viper, think you are right.

That really sucks. Weren't there any alarms or gage reading indicating there was a temperature problem?

The oil may have blown out through your dipstick tube if the sump got pressurized.

I wasn't there. They said the temp gauge went up, then they realized the water was off so then then turned it on and that was all she wrote.

Wow! If they applied cold water to a hot engine, it's most likely cracked her good somewhere. I googled that model engine and found a few. One was $3,700.00! It's got to be torn down for sure I would think. Good luck though.