I don’t see any value in asking for wild guesses, someone is going to have to open the hood and look for the reason the engine seized, shouldn’t take long.
No oil? No Coolant? Swamp water? Beach sand?
I wonder if the engine has a hydraulic lock. Water or engine coolant will not compress. A breached head gasket may have allowed coolant to fill up one or more cylinders. If the truck was driven through water deep enough to get into the engine, this could cause the problem. If somehow one or more cylinders got filled with unburned fuel, the engine would suffer hydraulic lock. If the engine is a gasoline engine, one could remove the could remove the spark plugs and try cranking the engine. If it turns over, hydraulic lock was the problem.
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Maybe you put in too many persimmons Miss @EileenConfal.
overheating due to lack of coolant, failure of some important part in the cooling system, or loss of engine lubrication, for example oil loss, are the main causes of engine seizures. others less likely
- coolant not having enough frost protection and froze solid
- some important part inside the engine broke due to a manufacturing defect
No over heating. I only drove the truck 10 miles.
No, my ex must have done something to it before he dropped it off at my house.
I will be more specific. What do you think my ex husband could have put in the fuel or done to the engine to make the engine seize up. He is a mechanic himself.
If you suspect something was done to you engine, by accident or design, you have now framed the question / situation much differently. However the answers are all the same, all answered above.
Lack of oil would be the first thing I would look for. When you checked the oil what was the level and what did the oil look like on the dip stick? Low oil or very old congealed oil will wreck an engine in very short order.
Overheating to to lack of coolant can cause a major hurt to an engine. What is the condition . level of the coolant? If the engine has a head gasket leak and coolant was drawn into the oil the engine is quickly ruined. Check the radiator after the engine has cooled off, you risk nasty burns if you open the cap when it is hot. Look for the level and see if there is any oil in it.
This is an old engine, lots of things could have caused it’s demise, not all deliberate.
Obviously you’re going through some rough times right now, and I’m sorry about that. But in order to verify sabatage, someone would have to be able to physically inspect the vehicle. There is no way a forum dependant on written descriptions can give you what you want. We can give you reasons that could cause engine seizure, for example, lack of maintenance, and a very long list of things. The more info you give the more specific we can be. What happens when you turn the key etc.
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As a mechanic, there are dozens of things he might have done if he was trying to deliberately wreck your engine. This is kind of like suspecting a homicide detective of committing murder or suspecting a doctor of deliberately killing his patient, because their professional knowledge would afford them knowledge and skills to cover up their alleged crime.
Having said that, this could all be a coincidence. Your ex-husband might have just been driving the vehicle when failure was inevitable.
In any case, I don’t think you’re going to have any luck pinning this on your ex-husband, so you might as well move on with your life and put it in your past. I wish you luck with your divorce and your next vehicle.
Sure, drain the oil and disable the oil pressure gauge/warning light. That would do it. Any oil on the ground?
Hi Eileen,
I am sorry that the information you’ve received does not seem helpful to you. Let’s not call names, though. Purebred is no brain dead fool, and Rod Knox is no kid.
Thanks,
Carolyn
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Yes, there are ways to sabotage an engine and cause it to seize. Under the “Cash For Clunkers” program, engines were deliberately seized.
Whether this method would allow you to drive 10 miles, I have no idea.
The motor oil is drained and replaced with a sodium silicatesolution, then the engine is started and run until the solution, becoming glass-like when heated, causes engine internals to abrade and ultimately seize.
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I received quite a few cash for clunkers cars back in that time. We’d get them in from dealerships as scrap. Sometimes, the sodium silicate didn’t work, or the dealership neglected to put it in, or maybe they didn’t run the engine long enough. I always wondered which it was, but some of the cash for clunkers cars still ran. That whole deal was a monumental waste in my opinion.
Doesn’t make your point less valid.
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Agreed, it was a poorly thought out program from the git-go.
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I think it’d be possible to make an engine appear to be seized by pouring water into all the cylinders through the spark plug holes. Seems like a lot of trouble to go to. And once that was done, the truck couldn’t be started at all. Draining the oil out would be much easier, or adding bad engine damaging stuff to the oil as posted above.
If oil pressure is lost, as in oil pump pressure, you must shut off immediately. Local overheating can result in a bearing (main bearing, say) rotating, jamming the bearing against the crankshaft journal. That’s a cause of seizing that I’ve seen.
He could have poured sodium silicate
( waterglass) into the crankcase, which will seize up an engine and is found in auto shops for it’s many legitimate uses. This was the chemical used to permanently destroy engines during the “cash for clunkers” program.
It could have been worse, he could have created weak spots in both front brake hoses to cause them to burst when you tried to stop.