2002 KZTE vs River

[swaziboy]

So there have been many posts about drowning a car… from reading them in the past, I had stored up a lot of valuable information deep in my subconscious, ready for this day…

We crossed this river earlier in the day… did the usual, walked it, found a good line and crossed with no problems… on the way back though we had a few issues… as we had already crossed, we were confident of the line and didn’t walk again, BUT it was getting dark and mysteriously – water rises at night… the headlights, once submerged, didn’t shine very far and I took the wrong line and ended up in a deep hole… I have done lots of water before but the feeling of the bakkie floating was new to me… the front end, despite all its weight, just lifted and started drifting down stream, there was nothing I could do… I tried to reverse but there was no grip and the car stalled… the water was pouring in the front windows so I was closing them (electric) when I realised that the doors would not open… I opened the back windows, then switched off the ignition and took the key out.. my passenger and I swam out the back windows…

[swaziboy]

What followed was testament to good friends, knowledge accrued from reading everything you can and to Toyotas, you cannot kill them… in particular a 2.2 SFA Hilux which earned my respect… my bakkie was underwater, completely flooded and must have weighed 3 or 4 tons or more… we hooked up the tow ropes, opened the doors and started to pull… 2 hours later my KZTE was out on the river bank…

[Donkey]

geewheez, any piks?
Any damage to the truck?

[4x4BEES]

I started reading this at 10pm last night.
When I saw where the story was heading I stopped reading,
didn't want to have nightmares.

All I can say now is that I hope all is salvageable and your Lux runs again.

[swaziboy]

A few things I have learnt from this experience:
- Walk EVERY water crossing
- Check that your snorkel is actually water tight – Mine leaked as the silicon had aged!!!
- If you are going to be adventurous, ensure that you are with friends with proper 4x4’s.
- Garmin make a good GPS, it still works today despite being under water for 3 hours….
- JVC do not make a waterproof radio and Blackberry’s are really useless…
- My workshop manual was an excellent buy and probably saved me R 20K in labour.
- The internet has a mind boggling amount of information that can assist you.

So, most importantly in this event:
- Switch off the ignition and disconnect the battery as soon as you can to avoid shorting the ECU and other electrical components.
- Tow the car out and let it dry a bit.
- Do not attempt to start your car… Remove glow plugs and injectors and crank the engine a few times by hand, the fact that it can turn is a good sign…
- Once most of the water is out of the engine you can crank a few times with the starter, lovely looking fountains.

So I was very lucky and the engine seemed OK… then the fun started over the next 2 weeks to get the car sorted:
- Removed all seats, carpets, panels, dash etc and let it dry for almost a week.
- Undid all the electrical connections, cleaned them, dried them. Cleaned all engine sensors and all relays throughout the car.
- The winch wouldn’t work but luckily the solenoids just needed a good clean.
- Replaced the hooter and several globes that didn’t work anymore.
- Replaced the air filter and re-sealed the snorkel.
- Drained and replaced all fluids – engine oil and filter, both diffs, transfer case, gear box. I flushed them where they were badly contaminated. I replaced all fluids twice over the next month and some a few more times.

I then started driving the car again, just around town to see how it was going. On the 3rd or 4th trip the engine light came on and it went into limp mode. Eish.

[swaziboy]

So I followed the workshop manual procedure for running a diagnostics, bridged terminals TC and E1, counted the engine light flashes on the dash and it was saying "throttle control motor"... did some internet research and realised that it could either be the accelerator pedal or the throttle body.

So I removed the accelerator pedal, opened up the small electric box and water poured out (3 weeks later)!! I tried to clean it and dry it as best i could, re-installed it and the light came on again as soon as i pressed the pedal. I started to look around for a used pedal but after a fruitless week I ended up at Toyota... a week later and few thousand poorer my pedal arrived... fitted it and presto!! No light and all as good as new!!

[ROOFER]

show us some pics or this event never happened

Lets see the lux

[swaziboy]

Herewith some sad evidence...

[swaziboy]

And a few more...

[swaziboy]

And a few more...

[Donkey]

Ouch! but glad you got sorted

[swaziboy]

So this all happened 6 months ago and as of today i have a further 6000Km on the clock with my Lux including several trips to Moremi and a week in the Kalahari... its still going strong!!! What an awesome car...

[Donkey]

Just out of interest how many k's on the clock?

[mervyn]

Happy to hear it all worked out well. It was frightening to read on after hearing the part that the front end was floating....

So out of curiosity, what did the mopping up cost including the fluids and new pedal?

[swaziboy]

Tumelo, it has just gone over 275K on the road and about 10m freestyle...

Mervyn, I was very lucky and am still hoping against future gremlins, but I got away with a total cost of about ZAR 8400.00 (about 7000 BWP), bear in mind the pedal alone was P3600 and generally spares are pricier in Bots... I did order an ECU from Toyota which was 5K but ended up not needing it...

On advisement I did also change the timing belt and tensioner recently as apparently they don't like swimming and was an extra 1.5K...

[roeland.vlok]

Dwayne dit lyk of jou Lux behoorlik geswem het!
Bly dinge is nou uit gesorteer!

[mervyn]

So you ended up having an adventure, within an adventure

Luckily it went well and you are able to talk aboout it with laughter and not tears.

[Mars67]

Happy that it all ended ok for you and than you for the good information.

[CasKru]

I think you came of lightly all things considered. But that goes to show, some knowledge on what to do in certain circumstances and an excellent product you can survive these things.

I think my bakkie have been through that same river before...

[CraigC]

We had a fantastic day trip to Hamiltons 4x4 in the Lowveld this past weekend, I must say I had a very familiar experience as I got stuck on a river obstacle and all my mates with 4x4's were on the opposite side of the river, needless to say I was able to get myself out but it was a scary couple of minutes as the river pushed me downstream..... Mother nature always has the upper hand. My old faithful is at home sun baking for a couple of days to get the interior dry.

Don't under estimate a river, WALK it a couple of times.

Have an awesome day All.....

[Haboob]

Dwayne, very glad to hear that everything turned out okay...in that your vehicle is going again without too many issues. Please inform us exactly where this incident occured, as I would prefer my wife not to be too lazy at ths crossing. We had a similar incident on the marsh road in the Savuti where the crossing did not look too bad due to grass growing next to the driving line to almost half way across the river. The end result was that the water came above the wipers on the windscreen, before we started climbing out the otherside. I saw a vigo being towed to Kasane the previous day, which probably tried to cross the same river and came a bit unstuck. That occured with my previous 2.4 P 1994 D/C. Not a nice feeling when it happens, but I was followed by a 2.7 P kzte shape & 2.5 Isuzu. L- range second gear with constant revs, just enough for the bow wave & no stopping half way for pitches. Wife shouted to stop as it was too deep, but just had to keep going at that stage.

[4x4BEES]

Lucky for us newbies that we can see and learn about the consequences of not doing a water hazard properly.

[swaziboy]

Craig, If this river had been flowing like that one, i don't know if i would be here to tell the tale... maybe surfing on Inhambane!! Lekker pic!!

Edge, I live in Maun so we go play often and fortunately this was not on a road in one of the parks... that said, I offer a word of caution for those crossing water or marshy areas in bots: the attached pic is of a "pony" truck that carries supplies to camps out in the delta and linyanti... they travel in convoy of several trucks and are very heavy laden... in wet swampy areas its wise to criss-cross water crossings when you walk them to check for where they may have dug in a little bit!! those tyres are big and they leave big holes!!

[Haboob]

Thanks for that advice Dwayne, next year I will be doing Ndumo & Mamili, just after the rainiy season...