Waterproofing the V8

[fesuvious]

Hallo everybody.
I have a V8 that id like to get as 'waterproof' as is possible.

What measures both big and little should I take? And how?

Any tips or suggestions......

[Xtremeteam]

oh boy,where to start,what ive done is:fit coil in to vanilla ice cream tub available fron asdas,there might b a pic on my web page,on the cap clean it till its spotlesss with either thinners or brake cleaner & go round the small lip on the inside of the cap with silicone grease,nows a good time to mark the cap with No1 plug lead & the rotation,brfore refiting spary wd40 inside the cap & remove excess,take each plug lead off & clean with either thinners or brake cleaner so they are spotless then number each lead with the tags from an electrical supplier,then take a rag soaked in wd40 & pull the lead through it so it coats the lead in wd40,do this a few times to each lead,then refit to vehicle,i do this to my 90 racer before each compsafari & have never ever had problems with it dropping cylinders after splashing through puddles which is always a good thing,my dad did this to his rangerover & it never missed a beat even when the water was up over the bonnet without a snorkle.any more questions just ask

[Colin 009]

Hi all I did to mine was fit an nine fingered rubber glove type thingy over over the dist.. and an other over the coil. plenty of WD40 before driving through water and I have snorkel of course.

I shall try and find out where you can get these things if you like, will see my mate thursday who I got them from.

[muddyweb]

There's a few things I have done over the years... all work.. just a case of how far you want to go really.

1)  If you don't already have them... electric fans..  with an override switch so you can stop them spreading water all over the engine bay when you are wading

2) Move the coil into the cab or into a well sealed box.  The further out of the path of the water you can get it.. the better.

3) Get a decent set of plug leads with decent boots on the ends.  As has been said.. keep them clean

4) Silicon spray is good, again it needs to go on clean leads and be redone every so often

5) Rather than seal the distributor, I used to pump air into mine.  A little inlet on the side of the housing and a low pressure air feed from either a 12V aquarium pump or a compressor if you have one fitted.  If you keep a nice feed of air going in... the water can't get in... but the dizzy can still breathe.  This, in conjuction with a good clean and spray was how I had mine set up.  

Hope some of that is useful.  I used to plonk my V8 into water regularly with the above done.    Now, I have a distributorless engine... so it's even more fun <grin>

[muddyweb]

A few other things.... just came to mind...

Make sure you have wading plugs for all the right places.
Make sure your breathers are all clear
Make sure your seals are all in good nick.


Water can and will get past a leaking crankshaft seal, or front cover gasket, or sump gasket, etc... especially if you get any suction effect from the cooling effect of the water on the air inside the mechanicals.

[fesuvious]

Thanks for the advice so far.
It was really the electrics that I needed the advice on - and thankyou for the advice so far.

I left the question fairly open as im sure theres a few people that the info will be very useful for.

The suggestions re coil and leads are gonna be very very helpful....