Piston issues

[Fordman92]

i have a 92 Eddie Bauer 4x4 and i have recently sucked water into the intake and basically killed the motor (yeah, i know, i was stupid) . It has 182,000 miles on it and ran fine before hand. It ran for about a total of 10 minutes after this happened and when i started to tear it apart and took the driver's side head off i turned the motor by hand and noticed that the rear piston (closest to the firewall) didn't come all the way up to the top (it fell about 1/4, maybe less, short of being flush of the top of the block) while the other 2 came up to flush. A friend of mine (a chevy guy) told me that he thinks that i have a bent rod. Can anyone out there give me any second opinions?? I really do not want to pull that motor out to get into that crankcase also being in the military doesn't give me enough time to work on this thing so, i'm hoping that it doesn't resort to that....Thanks in advance.
~Fordman92

[NoXferCase]

Originally Posted by Fordman92

Can anyone out there give me any second opinions?? I really do not want to pull that motor out to get into that crankcase

Based on the info you have given, I would agree with your Chevy friend. Since water is incompressible, having any significant amount in there during a compression stroke would make something really bad happen. The fact that it ran tells me you didn't actually break anything. Bending something is the most likely alternative.

If it does have a bent rod, you may have damaged the bearings and it is probably unbalanced enough now that continuing to run it would cause even more damage.

Sorry, but it sounds like it's time for a rebuild or take it somewhere for a new engine (if the rest of it is worth keeping).

[Fordman92]

well, that's what i was afraid of...thanks for the info