Deep Water Blues!

[Tug-n-pull]

Well it would not have been all that deep but I was given my 13 year old son a thrill and hit the puddle a bit to hard. To day was one of them days when you feel all rebelious and break as many rules as you can as fast as you can. Wanted being an understatement I needed to go to the woods for a clearer mind set prior to monday.

No one wanted to go but Jake. Course Jake is 13 and has no Jeep truck or even 4 wheeler so.. We go alone. Yea I know but we had a winch 2 come alongs 3 strapes a hilift and all the asorted tools and goods you could ever want so off we go to an ez trail. Dark Holler!

Drove in to the lower trail showing Jake how Granny low requires no help! Just put in there and crawl all day and up or down hill rough or smooth the granny low will go. Never enen need to touch the throttle. He says can I steer, Well being rebleiosu today I say steer heck you can drive. I get up while going about 2 mph and say get over here. We change drivers on the move.

Jake can drive today so he is so smileing and so haven a great day of it. He is saying thank you and grinning so big. Well it is getting boreing so I say get second and you will have to give a bit of gas from time to time. Now he is really smileing. We travle a couple of miles at 5 to 10 mph and we come to the "Adams Hole" named for the big splash made there by Greenreaper. Another story!

Jake hits it a time or two and I take over the helm. Go on out to the end of another short trail turn around. Now all here that know me, know I never do this but I hit the hole pretty hard wanting to get a little muddy so I could take a pic for Jakes buddys at school tomorow. On line email proof that he had driven all over Dark Holler today.

Hit a bit to hard and it went dead! Captial D-E-A-D dead. I had juice to run everything on the jeep but no power to the starter motor. I mean no click no turn nothing! Dead. I am setting in a small rut no way to push it out to try and bump it of in either direction. Rather than waste a bunch of time and still not get it started or pull all the juice out of the battery with the winch being it is not running I opt to walk out and call for help.

We do a 45 min power walk all down hill to the local resturant there and call home Momma Calles Will and here he comes to save the day and it cost me a hamburger and fryes. Now he is haven trouble with his front break locking up another story and is afraid to go in to get me for fear of trouble hisself. Enter Uncle Nathan gives me a ride in tows me out of the rut I bump it off runs great come to town wash out the engin compartment so I can work on it and come home. Park it and give her a try and she had dryed out and starts right up. try her again a few times with no problems.

All of that so far was just me venting to the only people "you all" I know that would even care much less understand what a great time it was! I love it no matter how bad it gets out there. hehehe

Punch line is! What in the world did I git so wet that it would not allow the stater to kick in? It was such a dead short that while trying to start I smoked some wires under the dash. It had to be between the key switch and the silinode. Any ideas where to look for this problem?

Or was I just being punished for all the things I was doing wrong out there today. Tug

 

[Sully]

Hey,sounds like you two had a blast!Teaching Jake a thing or two out on the trail eh' tug?Keep it up,I know he is having a ball! Sully

 

[Snitty]

your switched power may have been shorting through the water to ground... or ANY switch powered device could have been shorting through water.... it doesnt seem like it will be an easy thing to find... lets just hope that you didn't completely smoke a wire

 

[L33TJ33P]

This happened to you once before brutha. Remember?? Quit turning that key so many times. You have A LOT of Cold cranking Amps in Tugly and everytime you hit her that full charge hits dem wires and they heat up. I have burnt the wiring out of a K5 that way.Hit the Key Once, no start, hit it again. but after a few hits it is gunna start melting the plastic on the wires. I REALLY think that is why it starts smoking on ya.

The other part (no clicking)??? I have had this happen Once on an 85 F150. But we had this niffty little thing we did. We would use a pipe of hammer to tap the starter and it would get to working. If not We would find the little Silenoid that was mounted on the side of the engine compartment and short the wires together with a flat head screwdriver. This worked a few times until the thing just POPPED and broke in half on us. Replaced that and the Starter and never happend again.

 

[K_K_PSI_GUY]

If I remember correctly, the connections are exposed at the starter, so the water must have been shorting out the connection. The only way you could have made it start is by clearing mud and or the water in the starter. Sounds like you had some fun. I hasd some fun as well, so I'll post some pics later on of my little adventure.-Al

 

[Craig]

Your're lucky you didn't hydraulic the motor. I hydraulic locked my motor about a year and a half ago (before I got a snorkel) and the exact same thing happened. The motor would not turn over. It was so seized up, you could hear the starter teeth move out to engage but it wouldn't turn over the motor. Good thing I was smart enough not to try again...could have done some serious damage. I had to pull out the plugs about 200 kms out in the Rockies...good thing I brought my tools!

 

[L33TJ33P]

Adams Hole isn't nearly deep enough to hydro-lock it but it IS deep enough to flood the floor pans if you leave your plugs out LOL.

 

[Snitty]

Jeepz.com decals

when a motor is hydrolocked... it is not worth melting, smoking, breaking, and grinding anything... get those plugs out right away and let it dry up... spraying some WD-40 in the plug holes is a good idea to get that water out of there

 

[Tug-n-pull]

I removed the breather first thing and all there was as dry as a bone. So I was pretty sure it was not hydro locked or any thing. Plus it died slow not a sudden hard stop of the engin. It was a blast and Jake leared a couple of things about what not to do. You are abe to tell a 13 year old alot of stuff that they just never hear but show em somethng stupid and have to walk out and you have made a beliver out of em. He did so good I was real proude of him. Don't get to many chances to be a one on one dad these days busy as we all are. Worth any amount of smoked wires or walking just to have spent the time with Jake yesterday. Tug

 

[MudderChuck]

Looking for Hard Top for 95 YJ

I´ve taken a few starter relays apart, half full of mud and rust. Mud in with the brushes, will cause it not to work, the trick with the BFH works for me.

 

[64Jeeper]

I had that happen to me once, and it turned out that I swamped the starter itself. So you might end up buying a new starter. Not saying that you will, but it's just a guess, cause thats what I had to do.

Also the soleniods do swamp easy as well. So if you have to install a new one, just silicone the bottom of it first. That will help make it last longer.

 

[BakedAlaskan]

I guess that is what happened to the guys Bronco I half rescued last summer. He went in deep and almost across the hole when she died. Never started again. We tried the solinoid, tapping the starter, checking for power and voltage drop. All was working but it did nothing. I figured the sarter was so full of water she was dead shorted inside of her self.

The amount of volts going through her on start up is great but nothing like the amount work the ground if going through. wires will smoke fairly quickly if given the chance. Did you toast something bad or just smell a few things. If you smelled something it was probably just getting hot on the ground side. Should be fine with a visual inspection.

Solutions: Don't try starting more then once in the water. Stick with your boy driving. Or get one of those mean green starters. :lol: :lol:

Sounds like you had a blast. My daughter and I spent about a half hour playing on our property too. Of course she only steered, she is 7. What a good time though!!!