I'd like to do a bit of fording, but I don't know how far I should push the car. She's a pretty standard 88 D*lly but I've raised the suspension a bit.

What are the best techniques for driving through water?
What causes the car to stall?
And what damage can be done?

In my last experiance with water, we were driving through the village in torrential rain. The pond (a spring) had overflowed the road and flooded some nearby houses. Before entering the water I dropped into 2nd but kept my foot slightly on the clutch to keep the revs high. We got about 10 yards to the point where the water had just started to come over the running boards when she stalled.

I'm guessing the water had gone into the exhaust and there was too much pressure for the gasses to escape.

I pushed her out and she started again as soon as I turned the key, much to the surprise of the people watching, especially the guy who went on about water in the distributed and the air intake

how deep can I go in a standard car and what can I do to keep going?

Thanks all

Should probably mention she's got luminition not 123 or anything. She's my daily car and is a very good runner, got 85 out of her on the way to st Ives and went round the clock on the way home.

Steady!



If you hit it too hard, you'll get water into places that don't like water - so your intention is to keep the amount of water in the engine bay to a minimum.

Also, you're increasing the drag on the car, yet you may not be increasing the torque to the wheels sufficiently to compensate.

Low gear, medium revs, and - if it's a long stretch of water - you want to get a nice little bow-wave going to push water out of the path of the car, effectively lowering the level.



Where to start!

2cvs are not designed for water. They don't like it.

Worst case is to get sufficient water into the air intake to hydraulic lock a cylinder. Engine = toast. Not a great problem on 2cvs, because of where the intake is. It's a bit more likely if you've got a Dyane gentlywaftycharger intake. I don't recall it ever happening, but I don't recall any 4x4s using Dyane intakes.

Depend on water level, you'll also get water into the brakes, gearbox, wheel bearings, kingpins, suspension cans, points box, chassis... If/when the water hits the fan, you can easily lose blades. If the carb gets very wet, you may find it jams, giving a choice between turning off or full throttle until it dries out.

If you're going to play, in the water, service the car very thoroughly as soon as you possibly can.



First and off the clutch would be much better.



Very unlikely, unless you lifted off the throttle, since a constant throttle will always be pushing gas out of the tailpipe.



It depends on how long you want your car to survive. With the 4x4s, despite a lot of upgrades and preventative maintenance, the wear and maintenance increases rapidly as soon as water's involved.

*puts his policemans hat*

You did what speed, on what road at what time in what vehicle?

*takes off policemans hat*

Thats pretty good going...

I seem to remember that once it hits the fan you've rapidly got a flooded engine bay, there was someone who fitted an electro-magnetic clutch to his fan to turn it off for fording?

A few have replaced the normal fan with a thermostatic electric fan (or manual switched plus temp gauge) - Paul T, SubaruPete, Pete Sparrow, Mark? - but I think they've mostly removed them again, since simplicity and reliability was found preferable...

Go backwards

Don't try this at home

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGw50TG4ePI

My technique is to cane the tits off it.

You'll need to change fans afterwards and empty the points box though. These things are cheap and easy and caning the tits off it through water looks way more heroic than going gently. It's a lot more fun too

The most important thing you can do though, is to make sure the grommit at the bottom of the steering column is in place properly, ootherwise water will shoot up your trouserleg, this can be an embarrasing problem.

See the 2nd half of video for what can happen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj4bdj8u094
See other video for Mk1 fan with magnetic clutch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v163BnM7E1o

In steady, out quick. I still have electric fan on the pick up but its not used every day it does help but Im not sure on and every day car that the cooling would be sufficient (correct me if Im wrong)

best bet is to put a muff car matt etc infront of the fan even with electric fan - thats what i do and it never stalled oh and a snorkel pipe does help too!