I pulled the ultimate dumb-dumb and drowned my Trans-Diesel in muddy water over the floorboards. I had water in the oil (milky sludge for oil would be more accurate) so I've done three oil/filter changes and the oil is presently staying clear. I also added a diesel fuel treatment to the fuel tank.

When I first got it running again, it was blowing lots of thick, white smoke. Now it's blowing a little bit of smoke under hard acceleration. I've drained the muffler so I'm pretty sure it's not excess water in the exhaust.

The biggest problem is a loss of power. It started off barely limping along. It's back up to about eighty percent of its original self, but still showing signs of power loss.

What do I do now? What (potential at least) damage have I done to the motor? Will the power come back on its own with time, or is it screwed?

 

how about the air box and air filter have you changed the filter and made sure there was no water in the airbox?? i would change the spark plugs too. and checking the molex conectors on all the electrical might be a good idea. water inside the conectors is not good. welcome to KF btw.

 

The the diesel only has glowplugs, no spark plugs, and there was no water left in the crankcase that I can see. The dealer's opinion is that it's suffering from a bent connecting rod on one or more of the pistons.[&o]

 

the dealer is trying to f*ck you over, if i were you id knock that ***** out (but thats just me). i dont know about diesels but i know 2-strokes have forged steel/iron cylinders and that'll rust in the humidity, let alone with water on it. if it partially rusted then when the rust was scraping away it may of eatn the rings to. do a compression check and see if youre getting sh!tty compression. i know that the ratio for 3010mules is 10.3:1. i have no idea what the psi is though.

 

+1 on the compression check...

i'm literally just guessing, but i'm gonna say very close to 200 psi should be the number, if not more.. (being a diesel..)

USE A COMPRESSION GAUGE MEANT FOR A DIESEL!
they're rated to 600 psi typically...
make sure to disable the injection too..

do a dry check, note the numbers, then, pour a bit of ATF in the cylinders thru the glowplug hole and reconnect the comp gauge, and do another check.. this is called a "wet test" and if the pressure is SIGNIFICANTLY higher (than the dry test), then you're looking at rings.. the wet test will always be higher even on a minty motor, but if its more than double, the rings are gone.. if it stays roughly the same, you may have a bent con rod, or have blown the head gasket, or lost the valve seal..

the ATF will smoke a bit when it burns off, but this will cease.. just use a tiny bit.... maybe 3-4 capfuls of it.. don't wanna hydrolock the motor with too much..

oh, and Welcome to KF bro!!!!

 

I did the same the same thing to my mule 2000 2510 diesel . your best bet is drain everything fiush and start over. drain fuel wash at car washbake 3 days in sun, change all filters ,repurge fuel system. when this is being done start at# 2 CYL for a reason this may take sevral trys you will know youwill here a differnce in sound. after that you will need to rebuild wheel bearings all of them.

 

I sat mine in water up to the seats, left it running, Hey it has a snorkel.water in the rear end (breather tube) Water all in the drive belt case. ended up trying to drive it out and burned the belt. After it dried all out lost power also. Ended up taking out the drive belt getting a new one. 100% power returned. Belt is not cheap but your installation is cheaper than theirs.