My Explorer -project (2000-11-07)
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After finally finishing the soft top installation at 2000-11-05 it was supposed to be a test drive with the new top on. A week ago we had couple of nights when temperature sank below freezing point and stayed there for a day between.
Naturally there was only water in the cooling system and due to 30km (~19miles) one way trip from where i live to where my craft is located i didn't empty the cooling system in time. When i decided that i have to drain the system it was already frozen. I wasn't able to start the engine to warm it a bit to make water running so all i could do was to wait.
 
After soft top was finally put on we were supposed to put in coolant to hold -30C temperatures. Just as a precaution i checked the oil level and it seemed to be on a high side. Craft was leaning to aft and right side where dipstick is located. I did a recheck and it still seemed to be high as well as in other recheckings.
We ran the engine without any cooling for a minute or so to see how the oil looks like after been circulating a bit.
Oil level was still high and it seemed to be slightly grayish in color, but couldn't tell for sure because of dark environment.
Finally i had to stop checking because i broke the dipstick (it was already broken when i got the engine and heat from brazing it back together caused material to weaken so much it didn't stand for so many checkings).
We decided not to put in coolant until oil system was checked for possible water.
 
Yesterday afternoon we headed to hoverport prepared with equipment needed to drain the oil system. Also we had a new oil dipstick with us made from automotive radio antenna! It was made long enough to be trimmed for proper length after we get confirmed dimensions of actual length of dipstick in EA-71 (Thanks again Bob!). I suspected that we had initially brazed two pieces of dipstick together wrongly or that the plastic collar holding the correct length had moved at some stage of the process. Again by the time we got there it was already dark and we had to work with flashlight and few service lamps. Opening the drain plug was depressing: there was quite a bit of water in the oil system... That surely explained the high level of oil.
 
That's it i thought - time to start looking for a new engine. "Maybe i'll go for 1.8l or even turbo!" i was thinking out loud. But my father (auto mechanic for more than 35years) suggested that we should at least check under valve covers before further actions.
Well, we opened them and immediately saw that on the left side 3 out 3 plugs that separate oil and cooling circulation had been popped out and on the right side 2 out of 3 plugs were out! I remember same thing happening to my Datsun 1200 turbo -project few years back. Also only water in the cooling system and it froze quickly overnight. Only damage then was one plug popped out thanks to sloppy work i had done putting that plug on in first place... With a little bit of luck on our side we will go away with just replacing these plugs but i'm still skeptic about it since we are now talking about full aluminium engine here. Let's see how it turns out. At least we try to replace the plugs and run it for awhile before buying new engine.