Hi,
yep, coolant again... I\'ve read a lot on here about it,and tried to put it into practice tonight, but... this is what happened...
I fired her up this morning, and during the wait for things to heat up, I got the ADD COOLANT buzzer... never happened before, only had her a few weeks.... bugger!!
No panic, i thought, I checked on here, then decided to get some coolant and distilled water and top it up to see what would happen.
Looked in the top of the radiator filler neck ( see picture of engine bay here (http://www.mazdarotaryclub.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=23937&d=1159912541) )
It looked wet, and looked like there was liquid just out of sight, but the height of the filler neck is higher than the radiator, so.....
anyway, I checked the dipstick in the coolant overflow tank, and it looked dry..
AST cap looked fine... didn\'t touch it....
Anyway, I added some water and coolant in the filler neck, and it seemed to go in OK, level wasn\'t noticeabley rising though, so I kept going... it kept going in...
Scratched my head for a while, and decided to pour some in the coolant overflow pipe too... seemed to go in ok, but then I noticed it dripping on to the ground... not sure if it had been going on for ages or not, but eventually saw coolant dripping down from the overflow tank... right from the seal between the inlet pipe and the tank... could this be a leak, or is this how it releases liquid when it is overfilled...?
:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :xconfused :xconfused :xconfused :xconfused
PS - the red car in the picture is not mine....
its from this thread (http://www.mazdarotaryclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30047)...
Yep, To run a Happy Fd there has to be two Good condition Cap\'s (one on the AST and the other on the Engine replace if in doubt), No leaks (this includes tha Pipe from the AST to the Overflow bottle), The levels must be correct (Thats fill up the Engine level until at the top and the Overflow bottle should be set to a level between Min and max and marked so its easy to check) and last but not least make sure there is a Good ratio of Antifreeze (It has Ovious Antifreeze propetys as well as anti corrosion that people overlook)
i think i\'ll wait and see what the levels are tomorrow, when things have had a chance to settle from tonight...
So, ideally, the level in the filler neck (in centre of engine bay) should be what? an inch short of the top? covering the little extra hole in the side of the filler neck?
and the overflow tank should have "some" in it.
(my overflow looked dry, and I couldn\'t see the liquid inthe filler neck...)
like this?
Ok put it this way, My mate had problems with his Buzzer going off all the time and was realy starting to rattle him. After a trip to Pip\'s it was decided that the Pipe between the AST and the Overflow bottle was leaking (there was a Join in it under the IC) when this was fixed the where perfect.
It would seem that there has to be water in the overflow to AST pipe or the engine Pulls air in, Don\'t know exactly why but thats what happens.
Seems you have a simalar problem, id say put some water in the Overflow tank and see if it leaks out.
The reason for this is as follows: When the coolant heats up, it expands. When it expands, it creates pressure against the pressure cap in the AST. When this reaches 0.9, the ast cap opens. This does 2 things: regulates the pressure in the coolant system, and lets out the expanded coolant into the overflow tank. Now, due to there being no air in the coolant to start with, the AST to overflow pipe will constantly have coolant in it (Also due to vacuum, and therefore no air will be drawn into this pipe).
When the system cools down, the coolant stops expanding, and starts to contract - when it does this, it draws the coolant back in that was in the pipe and overflow tank. If there was a hole in this pipe, it would also draw in air too, therefore meaning not enough coolant has been drawn in, and the buzzer will go off. HTH