Mazda Rotary Club

For some reason the sound track is totally out of synch with the video... But either way, looks clear to me now that my water seals are totally fubar\'d!

Now, can I drive it around as long as I keep topping up? It\'s not struglling to start, I pulled the plugs out today and gave them a good clean and it\'s running absolutely grand... And the weird thing, there\'s never any sweet smelling white smoke from the exhaust, just noxious death as expected!

That said I did change the coolant a while back, so there could be air in there still? Unlikely however! Also never overheats and never has... C\'est la vie.

Still, guess I\'ll dip into the ol\' savings and go from there... I fancy giving it a go myself, except we\'re just in the process of buying a new house that\'s going to need a lot of work to that as well :( Plus with the mini-recession looming ;)

It never rains, but it pours!

If you want a basic test if its the water seals, Does the rad pipes go hard very quickly after starting from cold? Does the Expansion bottle fill up and overflow? another test is get the motor hot with the rad cap on, let it cool right down then remove the plugs and turn the engine over backwards slowly, if the water seals have gone you will see fluid leak out of the bottom plug hole.

Out of intrest does the rad get hot?  and how long ago did you do the Coolant?

To me that doesn\'t sound like a water seal failure, when they go they go in such a fashion that withing seconds of the motor starting the Pipes are realy hard (even though its still cold) and it starts pushing all the water into the Expansion bottle, obviously because there is air in the system and it doesn\'t absorb heat in the same way as water it will get hot and the symptoms will get worse the hotter it gets.

I hope Rixio doesn\'t mind i put this up here, this is how a water seal looks when it goes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43bdGs4ePlI (note the pipes are very hard and the amount of water it pushes out)

I think if i was you i\'d have a really good look at thinks like the Water pump (make sure its not weeping) and things like Thermostat to make sure the Rad is not full of air still before you pull the motor out.

When mine went it started to dump the water and it would not start from hot.

Eventually morning starting gets tricky cos you can hear the water in the chambers which is pushed in after turning off the engine by the pressure in the coolant system (thro the duff seals). As you try and start it the water gets chucked out and then away you go and it will run ok. Try not to get it too hot since the plates may warp at the hot spot.

Another test is to run it up, stop it, take out the plugs, leave rad cap on and let it cool, have a clean sheet of paper underneath and turn it over. Any water will be ejected out onto the paper.

Try a new rad cap also first.

Hope your ok

Keith

Hmmm, sounding a bit positive there! I like that :D

I topped it up with distilled water, then drove to the garage at my old mans place, while I was waiting for it to cool I took out the old plugs (black as sin!) scrubbed up some other plugs and put them back in. However they were just covered in black carbon really... The top plugs "traling right?) looked like they were burning OK, greyish colour to them, but the leading were covered and they were 7\'s... Anyway, didn\'t spot any water, should it be obvious?

Once i\'d finished it had cooled down enough to open the rad cap, where it released some pressure and gurgeled a bit. The only times it\'s over flowed the expension bottle is when I\'ve kept topping up the water and it\'s finally got too much, always after switching off.

I\'ve replaced the AST cap and there\'s no signs of leaks around the filler cap.

With the stock air box it\'s hard to get to the rad pipes but AFAIK they\'re hard when hot, but not instant from starting up.

And as said, never has been over heating and no instant fans like that with Rixio\'s vid there... And my vid was with a warm engine so it was pretty much up to temp on the stock gauge there.

I\'m booked in to get a pressure test and a few other bits done, I\'ll see if they have an emissions probe as well to test for HC\'s in the coolant... You\'ve given me hope :D

Is it loosing water?

Quote from: B9 KLFWhen mine went it started to dump the water and it would not start from hot.

Eventually morning starting gets tricky cos you can hear the water in the chambers which is pushed in after turning off the engine by the pressure in the coolant system (thro the duff seals). As you try and start it the water gets chucked out and then away you go and it will run ok. Try not to get it too hot since the plates may warp at the hot spot.

Another test is to run it up, stop it, take out the plugs, leave rad cap on and let it cool, have a clean sheet of paper underneath and turn it over. Any water will be ejected out onto the paper.

Try a new rad cap also first.

Hope your ok

Keith

Thanks Keith, again sounds promising! I do hope it\'s just an obscure leak, or the AST not sucking water back in or something like that!

I\'ll be great if it\'s OK! :D

Oh and now it\'s on YouTube, so the sound synch\'s with the video, it was warm by this point so maybe the temp explains some of the bubbles... Can you loose water into the turbo\'s? As they sometimes sound like a tractor, I think it\'s them anyway!

Quote from: RobbieRX-7Is it loosing water?

Yeah, the buzzer goes off more and more often now, but no visible leaks that I can see, no puddles I can spot under the car either...

If I keep topping up however, it does eventually blow out of the expansion bottle.

Seals have gone mate. Same thing happened to me. Has it been rebuilt and how many miles on it?. You can\'t see any puddles because it\'s burning it off and leaking from the etank whilst driving along.

Try topping it up from cold, take her for a 10 mile drive, park up and watch the front drivers side. Mine started to **** out after a couple mins.

Thats it, you know when the seals go. There is very little confusion it blows the water out of the system with so much venom that if you try and stop it blowing past the rad cap it will Blow your Rad,Heater matrix or Coolant Pipe.

Don\'t get me wrong Bubbles are not good. There is obviously a problem but looking from the point of view It starts well hot or cold, Rad pipes are not hard when cold and its not showing overheating signs. I would seriously look at other things maybe a water seal in the Turbo or dodgy Pipe??? Its worth checking first.

Word of warning about Pressure testing, unless its done by a Rx7 Tuner its been known to not work. (read this thread http://www.mazdarotaryclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28308&highlight=overheating)

Basically what i\'m trying to say is there are many things that could cause the same sort of Symptoms as a water seal, your best of doing some reading (because its common :() and check all the easy stuff first before you commit your self to a rebuild.

When did you top it up? Did you bleed the system properley?

Not been rebuilt AFAIK. And approaching the magical 60K miles... So it wouldn\'t be entirely unexpected, I\'d just hoped for a little longer ;)

The only time it overflowed from the expansion tank after stopping is after constantly topping up, right to the brim of the filler, and then just assumed it was because I\'d overfilled the system with constant topping up... My first suspecision was that the AST wasn\'t drawing water back in from the expension tank, but I\'m not so sure now.

When I replaced the coolant, I had the throttle body hose off, and slowly filled up, head loads of gurgling from the TB area which is good, but then didn\'t seem to need to "burp" the system, not 100% sure how to do this, or if they just mean run the engine with the filler cap off and top up as needed?

If I can get a vid of a cold start and jump straight round to the exhaust I guess that would help as well? It\'ll have to be tonight as I\'m off to work in a sec!

You have of course got the caps on the right way round :)

If only it were that easy! Yep, defo the right way round, the sprung cap (0.9 bar, new from Clive) on the AST, the solid cap on the filler neck...

Right ho, I\'ve been out and checked it cold starting... Part of the problem is that my plugs are fubar\'d, and I was getting it starting on 1 rotor before any water problems sadly, but I changed the plugs to 7\'s and 9\'s and that cured it.

I just put the 9\'s and 10\'s back in which it came with, it runs much better but obviously is much harder to start!

Anyway, vid 1 is the car at cold start:


The coolant pipe didn\'t go hard at all and no expelling from the expansion tank... Exhaust has some steam in but don\'t know if that\'s just condensation. Last time it was driven was Thursday evening and it\'s pretty much not stopped raining the whole time ;)

OK, vid 2 is after about 10 minutes driving, stopped to get some cash and it\'s a restart with the engine warm.


No real problem there, even with the 9\'s and 10\'s in... I\'ve ordered some fresh 9\'s all round to go in and see from there.

Also, with the engine warm and running, probably after 30 minutes of driving or so should the top of the AST and AST cap be cool? I\'d have thought that there would be hot water being pushed out of the AST hence it being as hot as all the rest of the hot water pipes?

And it doesn\'t over heat at all! Even when giving it some beans not a hint of getting hot... Sadly I\'ve only got the stock gauge but it sits just below 9 O\'Clock and doesn\'t go up to 9 O\'Clock at all.

Confused, but expecting the worst!

Oh, also I\'m booked in to get a pressure check on Thursday so will have some more info. Basically it should be able to hold 0.9 Bar on the filler neck and a bit more on the AST cap right? If it slowly drops pressure and no visible leaks then the water has to be pushed into the combustion chambers :/

Has anyone got a spare AST I could try out? Happy with the cr@ppy plastic job ;)

It\'s looking pretty good so far then. You should get a hydrocarbons tester from your local motor factors whilst the\'re still open. Most close at 5 on a sat. They only cost about a tenner and it will kill some of the anxiety before the pressure test on thursday.

Do Halfrauds sell them? Just been phoning around to see if anyone has any, but can\'t find anyone with any of them :/

Any ideas where to check?

Sorry mate, can\'t help on that one. A good motor spares shop should have them

Sadly not a single place round here had anything, they all knew what I meant (BTW, it\'s best referred to as a "block tester") but said it was supplied by tool merchants and the like... SO no joy there :/

I\'m going to go and change my plugs back to the 7\'s and 9\'s in a bit after giving them a scrub, so will turn the block over and see if any coolant comes out...

Thanks again all for the help so far!

A daft question, have you tried toping the system up and just leaveing it to see if you can spot any leaks?
normaly from what i hear when you have a waterseal problem its a real bitch to start and it will toss\'s white smoke out of the back for obvious reason. I know i had a \'slow\' leak which was hard for me to track down, it was the gasket/weaphole on the waterpump.

The symptoms of mine were it would leak half a cup of water and that was IT, no over heating then one day it just give up the ghost and blew its load over the road.:Nono! (no sexual inuendo intended)

I realy think you need to give the basics a real good lookover before you go down the route of waterseal failure.

oh! Just an off the wall idea, If your filling it up and starting it instantly, in theory if its say a coolant pipe going to the turbo\'s thats leeking you probebly wont see any leak as it will burn off stright away.

It\'s pretty much like that, can drive all day long without any overheating, had the plugs out yesterday and turned it over and just had some condensation come out (I watched the MotoGP and left the plugs out before trying!), but no coolant.

It starts fine with lean plugs, no problems at all! Run\'s fine, no more steam than the usual. So I\'m thinking maybe not water seals.

But can water leak into the turbo\'s? Or is it just oil that can get in there?

And then it\'s pretty consistant, about 400ml\'s of water I have to top up each time, and after a couple of times it\'ll blow some out of the expension tank, just because the system is overfilled... Kinda expected.

I think if we can pressurise the system then we\'ll be able to spot the leak hopfully! Or I can wait until it blow\'s it\'s load!!! ;)

Sounds like the waterpump or gasket then thats exactly what i had to do then it just progresivly got worse, but its odd your haveing problems actualy finding a leak! unless its just falling down and pooling in the tray. Btw blowing its load aint a good thing usualy happens at the most inoppertune times, i scared the crap out of a little old lady when i dove down a one way street the wrong way to get it off the mian rode, thankfuly killed the engine parked it up (yes engine off before i stoped moveing) filled her up two hours later and blitzed the last mile home. my car left a rather wet trickle all the way home :D

(as for checking the pump, Pull the IC pipes off and get your head down there, or a mirror? see if theres any gunk on the lower half of the waterpump, usualy a good sign of it failing.)

Hmm sounds promising! In a bizarre kind of way ;)

I\'ll have it up on ramps on Thursday so we\'ll be able to take a good look and hopefully find the source!

well yeah! its better than a blown water seal, give it a real good pokearound.

I had a water leak from the sensor below the filler neck - can\'t remember if that\'s coolant level or temp though. Basically the plastic thread was cracked and once the system pressurised it was leaking and running down onto the hoses going to/from the rad (from where it evaporated I assume). It was a small enough leak not to produce a puddle but enough for the low coolant alarm to come on quite regularly. Bought a new sensor from my local Mazda dealers for £20, problem solved :)

Good luck with the diagnosis :)

Cheers,
Alex

Thanks Alex, sounds like it could be a few things... I do hope it\'s a simple sensor swap out! That would be great :D

yeash! that was a nightmare to diagnose! i know it was annoying tracking the waterpump leak down with everything on for me, i eventualy spotted water runing down a few wires to the drivers side of the car.

I ended up having to take the airbox off (to see everything properly) and running the engine from cold while watching everything like a hawk until spotting something suspicious!

Yeah, i know what you mean, also worth cleaning things up as well when your down there as it would make spotting leaks easyer before you top it up, wish there was some trick you could do to make it easyer to spot such as adding a UV reactive dye to the water (not sure if that would screw things up, so wouldnt even consider it)

Once again thank you all for your help and suggestions!

But I\'ve found the leak... External, which is nice, but I was 180 miles from home, which wasn\'t very nice ;)

Basically the top plastic tank of the cr@ppy Mazda radiator had split, obviously just a tiny amount initially, and slowly getting worse, until I just thought sod it, we went to Bath for the Saturday and Sunday, get there fine, Sunday add loads of water (not a good sign!) and some more coolant and get going, about 10 minutes from Cheddar George there\'s loads of steam and the buzzer sounds before the temp starts to go up, so immediately off and wait 15 minutes before filling up and leaving a nice snail trail to Cheddar George...

...We had a nice day out, checking out the caves etc, thinking I was going to be towed hom by the AA... Call them, find I don\'t have relay cover so it would cost me in excess of £300 to get home... Bad, very bad! But with the AA guy, who was extremely help full, we find the leak spraying right out of a crack in the top tank at the back, so hidden by all the stuff above and was evaporating well before it was visible.

He had some putty to gam it up and a bit of K-Seal (good stuff, only blocks holes and doesn\'t screw up cooling systems, read up on it already) and managed to crawl home.

So time for a new rad! And pronto!

At least it\'s not the water seals :D Yet!!!

Have you seen this http://www.mazdarotaryclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42129 he has a Stock rad for sale CHEAP!!! at least it makes you mobile.

Cheers for that, it is cheap but it looks like changing the rad is a total ar$e of a job, so I don\'t need the car for every day use and most of my travel is via train so may as well hold out until I can get a decent replacement and no major headache swapping it all out twice!!!

Good spot tho\', very much apprecaited! As you said on the other thread tho\' I think I\'ll go for a Koyo N-Flo, just so it\'s a decent long term solution ;)

Changine the rad is pretty easy mate.

Yeh just make sure you have lots of space handy for all the Plastic C**p mazda saw fit to put in the front of the stock FD :)

It is a Daunting job but once the Ic and Battery tray are off you will be suprised how much space you have.

But reading the workshop manual, all the undertray and ARB mounts need to come off as well? Or can it all be done from the top and the manual just says do it from below?

Not that I\'m adverse and I have the space, it\'s just a PITA to do all it all again twice ;)

I have had a go at it from the bottom of the car and TBH i couldn\'t get the front tray bolts out so i had a rethink and did it from the top, after i got it all stripped i noticed the 10mm bolts that hold the rad in place are facing upwards anyway so unless they could be got at from inside the middle bumper opening you would have to take the ic out anyway. I would recomend removing it from the top though, there is always some water left in the rad and its not about getting an Antifreeze shower :(

LOL @ Antifreeze shower, not nice!

But you think it can all be done from the top? No access from below at all? Just the undertray is always an ar$e, I\'ll do it if I have to but if it can all be done from the top, so much the better :D

I had a look round and this is the only "How too" site i could find (gives you an idea)

http://www.rx7guru.com/radiatorhowto.htm

Cool, really honestly many thanks for all your help with this! And Robbie as well!

Looks like it\'s easy from above, so that\'ll be the plan for the weekend ;)

Once again, thanks and I\'ll keep you posted to how I get on.

Well, as seen on the other thread, I had a fecking nightmare getting the Koyo N-Flo fitted... But it\'s in!!!

Everything is looking good so far, I\'ve warmed it up, then will check the level tomorrow and go for the first test drive :)

Thanks again for everyone\'s help!

Right, back onto what the fduk is going on!

I\'ve fitted an alloy rad (after muchos swearage), then the AST blew after a long journey (where upon everything was fine), 120 mile round trip, mostly motorway. 60 miles there and no problems, no leaks after I\'d parked up and no buzzer when I set out again after a couple of hours.

Then the AST exploded just before home on the way back, tres mal :(

So, fitted new WGT alloy AST last night and filled up with water again and went for a blast, so a couple of buzzers when I first started, fine think I as I must have lost loads of water when the AST went (but it didn\'t overheat before I shut down the engine), so topped up and all was good.

Drove around for about 30 mins, stopped a couple of times and let the car idle, fans came on, fans went off, so they\'re all working OK and temps all looked good. Hoses weren\'t hard and stiff, just hot and under "normal" pressure.

Then went to my old mans, again let idle, all seemed fine. Then shut down so it would obviously get very hot, the hottest it\'ll get, and left it for 10 minutes, again no visible leaks onto the floor.

Turn the ignition back on and coolant buzzer goes again, so we top up again, it\'s not a lot but enough.

So, hoping it was just an airlock (I\'ve been filling up with the throttle body hose off) I head back home, been "giving it some large" here and there just to get the system in duress and park up.

Again no visible leaks, but only a few hours later, ignition on and buzzer goes again!!! AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!

But then it starts on the button hot and cold (always better hot) and there\'s no steam from the exhaust at all.

If it were leaking onto the turbo\'s surely there\'d be steam from that as well?

Any other ideas before I end up driving my gf\'s Figaro all the time ;)

OK, reading around on RX7Club:
http://www.rx7club.com/showthread.php?t=657948&highlight=water+loss

QuoteI think that if you just replaced the motor then you may have gotten a pin hole, or a small air space between the couplers in the overflow return line....sooooo instead of rreturning water from your overflow take you are drawing in air.

This was happening to me. I replaced the line a blammo I never had the issue again. Some have had luck with just zip tieing the lines at the couplers and overflow (there are two joints..three lines).

goodluck and it is worth a shot!
-josh

Worth a go???

IMO i think all the pipes in the engine bay should be replaced on any fd over 10years old. Thats what i did. They have been through a lot of heat cycles in the cramped engine bay. The 3 hardest pipes which are a fduker to do are the 2 turbo coolant hoses and the rear iron to throttle body hose. All the rest are easily accessible. Look on robs site here http://www.robrobinette.com/turbo_lines.htm

ps, did you get the ast?

Hmmm, looking like a small single turbo may be the way forwards then ;)

Providing my engine\'s not blown of course!!!

I fitted the WGT alloy one I managed to pick up yesterday, and at work at the mo\' so should be sat at home hopefully! I think I may try it with a plastic AST after reading about sealing problems with the aftermarket AST\'s. But many thanks for sending that! Gives me some options to try, so very much appreciated!

Also, should the overflow line, when hot, be filled with coolant? So if I were to take that off coolant shoud come out, or at least right near the top? Otherwise I\'d suck in air when it cools down right?

*clutches as more straws*

Right ho all,

It\'s fduk\'d, definately, the exhaust pressure from the water seals is what has finally cracked the rad and split the AST. So lucky I\'ve been able to get so far and really it does idle and drive perfectly, so such a shame I can\'t somehow extend it\'s life, but as they say, c\'est la vie.

Video for confirmation:


Basically, no bubbles at all until the thermostat opens and then all of this starts to happen immediately. But with the cap on, it all works perfectly, idles, warms up, fans come on, fans go off etc...

I may just get a lower milage engine from a breakers and swap it out for now, then maybe rebuild my current one at my leisure... But I\'ll get it back on the road, maybe get a small single tub at the same time and just be done with it ;)

Oh dear. Mine is the same state. I managed to find a cheap replacement engine, so I am in the process of removing my engine.

Robbie makes a good point about replacing the hoses. I have done the turbo ones, and I think the manifold ones, too.

I also had an aftermarket AST, but when my engine goes in, I am going to get a new AST from Mazda. I believe Roteknicks replace the AST on their cusomer\'s cars every 2 years.

Ditto about aftermarket AST\'s. I had a nice new aftermarket one all polished up which was meant to be a sure \' reliability mod\'. But it did not allow the cap to seat properly and let coolant by and I belive contributed to my first engine going pop. :2Confused


Keith

Yeah, think I\'m going to go the same way, try and find a lower milage replacement engine, and then have all the time in the world to rebuild my current one (i\'ll gonna need it!), but while the engine\'s out I\'ll replace those hard to reach places.

I was also going to see if I could get a low milage engine from Japan imported and go from there, but will have to see.

dude, dont go down the breakers route if you can help it! well at the bare minimum, make sure you can see it starting before they remove it....im in the process of selling an engine and I wont sell it until i can verify it works!!
the trouble is, you may well be able to hear the compression chugs and visbly check the apexes are in tact, but if the engine has water seal failure, you wont know till its in and you try starting it!

Aye, agree there, but I have a friend who imports a lot of cars and such like from Japan, and if he can find a low milage crashed RX7 then depending on price I may as well go for it...

...But depends on price ;)

I know what you mean about the water seals but if it\'s a newish engine then I\'d rather risk a factory engine as they seem to last longer as it looks like quite a few rebuilds have failed anyway.

trouble is dude, even the latest low mileage engine s gonna be kicking on 8 years old! mazda plate castings are known to crack..dunno if they remedied this on later cars or engines...so the likelihood of getting one with corroded plate castings which are close to breaking off and causing water seal problems is high!

True... So what you\'re saying, even if you go for a rebuild then get the side plates new?

As a lot of people reuse these right?

i think many plates are ok, but i think you got to pick ones which have got good castings around the water seal groove area....i cant remember the minimum thickness I was looking for when i bought mine from rx motors, but they were a VERY good set.

A lot of folks reuse the sideplates as long as they are within tolerance. Same goes with housings, but you do get better compression with new apex seals and housings. I know the fc engine had a problem with cracking near the oil filter pedestal, this has happened to prof recently on his turboII cab. As far as i know, fd\'s dont have this sort of problem. IMO i think if the engine is out of the car, you may as well tear it apart and renew those waterseals. You can even reuse all the apex seals, springs etc as long as you take note of where they came from inside the engine. The water seals always go on these engines. You can even have sideplates lapped to make them like new again. I recently checked ricco\'s turboII engine. I reccemmended he get the front plate lapped, but the rest were within spec with over 100,000 miles on them. For the hell of it, he\'s gonna get them all lapped by pip. Just pm him more more info, i think it costs £50 per plate?

Sounds like a plan!

But I\'ve done a dodgy temp fix up, just as a stay of execution until I can "get my sh1t together" ;)

Basically used this gear:
http://www.kalimex.co.uk/section.html?secpath=01.03.&pgid=2

It can just hold it together for a while it seems and is looking all OK today, but will it stand the test of time? Who knows! But you have to flush the system out until it\'s just water, then run it up to temp, put this gear in and let it idle for 30 odd minutes. Then drain everything out and leave overnight.

Filled with water this morning and the champagne test was all OK... *touches wood*

I do know I need to swap the engine, but it may get me mobile for a wee bit.

But a mate of mine went back home to NZ but apparently he left a 13B-REW in another mates garage... So I\'m gonna find out about this and then pull that apart, really you may as well redo the apex seals while it\'s apart and I\'m perfectly happy to use the Mazda gear, CBA\'d with the million mile run in required for ceramics ;)

No doubt you\'ll keep hearing from me and my progress ;)