Post water seal issue tear down - opinions appreciated.

[SiH]

As some of you may know, my car dumped the coolant on it\'s 1k old motor, and I suspected it had blown it\'s water seals. It subsequently failed the champers test in quite spectacular style
Engine is now stripped, and time for a bit of analysis.

Key points:

- Engine was clean inside, came apart pretty easily.
- Water seals all looked intact :confused:
- Water seal grooves look intact.
- e-shaft has what looks like some discolouration that I\'m worried about.
- strange patch on the e-shaft that was the colour of emulsified oil.

Piccies:





Am I right in thinking the e-shaft is boned?

Also, there were some marks around the leading edge of the rotors by the side seal

Do these indicate that the clearances on the side seals are too large?

I\'m guessing that the fact that there were no visible signs of knackered water seals indicates that the housings may be fcuked? I\'ll pop it along to Hurley at some point as Mick is happy to have a look at them for me :cool:

More pics can be found here:
http://s140.photobucket.com/albums/r30/Simon_r_hill/FDProject/SecondTearDown/

Hit me with the bad news
Si

[DR SCHNITZEL]

Who told you e shaf discolouration meant the e shaft was knackered?

It needs to be tested for shape and size i.e tolerances. looks ok to me but im dont know alot.

you shoudl be able to tell by a change in colour behind the water seal (away from the seal towards the outside of the plate/ housing where the leak was. it shoudl be fairly obvious. when my water seal went there was about 4 inches of charred seal and it was very easy to spot. maybe you had a very small leak. examine all parts v closely you shoudl spot something.

[Prof]

As long as the eshaft doesn\'t show signs of bearings spinning on it - score marks and such - then it should be reusable.  Just check the tolerances.
 
Note sure if the FD has one, but the FC has ports on the LIM where there is both water and exhaust gases present - if the gasket fails, it\'s possible for mixing to occur.

[FDAsh]

Buggered up shaft looks like this with the scoring:



...your bearings would resemble this:



And this is what it looks like when you have a stuck side seal, lots of carbon deposits between the seal and shaft area - if it\'s clean there then your seals have been working. In the first pic, Pip is pointing to the exact point where the seal has jammed.
 


One of my plates had a crack and caused WS failure symptoms, so go over them with a fine tooth comb if everything else looks good.

[SiH]

Cheers guys
Popped into Hurley\'s today where Mick very kindly cast a look over the plates and housings, and gave them a clean bill of health, so it\'s all good. Phew!

Cheers Mick, top service as always