i have an issue i really need some help on. i feel i have been over thinking this problem and might be missing something thats right in my face....
on my 89 tii im having a coolant loss issue. i know what your probably thinking, not another coolant loss thread. ill start saying the car stays at a steady 78 C. does not over heat. ive looked everywhere to see if something is leaking but cant find anything. dont think my heater core is leaking inside or out (carpet is dry on both sides). i was gone for about a month, when i came back i pulled the leading plugs and cranked the motor to see if something would be pushed out the plug holes but nothing. so i believe i dont have a blown water seal. i had the car running for about 30mins with 3 different people looking around to see if someone could find something leaking, but again nothing. i had a friend with a better sniffer than mine smell around the engine bay and exhaust. he said he smelled burned coolant around the turbo area but not out the exhaust.
on a side note, when i have the temp to hot the heater does not blow out hot air, its more like just on the warm side. ive checked the valve on the heater core near the pedals and thats working properly. just thought i would add in that bit
thats where im at. i drove the car 20miles last night, when i go out im gonna check to see the coolant level in the rad and overflow. what am i overlooking???????
thanx
how much are you loosing ??
might we worth checking the seep hole on the water pump ( underneath i think )
it can leak from here if the pump is on its way out
i "think" the turbo is water cooled aswell - so might be worth checking to make sure everything is tight around that area aswell
might be an air lock - hence you not getting hot air - and its pushing the water out somewhere ??
i would fix one prob then look for others - to be honest i would be starting at the heater and get it blowing hot air - at the end of the day the rex is known for blowing HOT air out the heaters - so something isnt right with yours
i dont know if its doable - but can you loosed the water level sensor on the top of the rad slightly until it bubbles water out of it - that might get rid of any excess air thats in there ( like bleeding a household rad )
does the top hose go rock hard when its running ( pressurising with air ) or is it still a tad pliable ?
Stu
honestly dont know how much its loosing. round trip to base and back is about 40miles, wasnt enough to make the low coolant buzzer go off but it was low.
i dont know if there is a hole on the bottom of the pump but i did find one on top, dry as can be. no wetness at all
i took a light and mirror to the turbo but no leaks at all. stock turbos are water and oil.
well i did run the car for 20 mins plus while every few minutes backing off the level sensor and letting coolant flow out abit. still no heat from vents
the top hose is abit pliable, diff not solid hard
i think i have a clogged heater core. i did manage to touch the hoses going in and coming out of the core. the hose on the passenger side is hot and the hose on the driverside is alot cooler. any other way to test is its clogged?
thanx again
hummmmmm well you have done everything i would have done :(
unless you have faulty heater controls
but that still doesnt explain the missing water
the controls are working good. when moving the temp from cold to hot the valve on the core is moving...i even disconnected the arm that connects the motor to the valve....just to make sure the valve was moving to full open. im at a loss. maybe leaking inside the turbo? but then again, it should smoke the whole time if that was the case. it did smoke alittle when i first started it up. but dont they all when its cold outside? no coolant in my oil either....hhhhhmmmmmmmmm
wild guess here, but maybe check thermostat is working. check expansion tank and see if that volume of water changes or not. check rad cap.
hope its gives you some ideas? :)
i believe the thermostat is working good. just sitting idle in the garage the car has a steady temp. where has everyone bought new rad caps from? are any caps from any parts store good to use? thanx for helping out everyone. i cant think of anything right now. but please, keep those gears turning. im sure someone will point out what im not able to see
Have you lifted the carpets at all? Just they are lined with rubber in the middle and the water gets underneath. You can\'t feel it by hand from on top of the carpet (at least I couldn\'t). Mine has leaked from the heater matrix area for some time now. Although I am hopeing I have fixed it now. My passenger side can be like a swimming pool underneath sometimes.
im having the same problem,i have a strong smeel of coolant from my turbo area.
It needs topping up from time to time and my coolant system seems to be full of flakey crap even after ive changed the coolant.I think its just an old hose breaking down inside?
When the coolant low level goes off i rev the engine a little and i think it helps to flow the coolant around.All my expansion hose\'s are good and i think the rad cap is fine as theres no vacum in the rad hoses after its cooled down.
My car isnt smoking either so its abit of a mystery lol,
i pulled up the passenger side carpet as much as i could but didnt see or feel anything different
i noticed my rad cap is really easy to twist on. should there be some sort of pressure/tension when putting it on? i tried calling the local parts store but had no luck looking for a new one.....hhhmmmmmmm
Try MazdaRotaryParts or one of the other vendors on this site. Someone will have one. Or there is a guy breaking a FC in the for sale section.
Quote from: Adam fc;669220im having the same problem,i have a strong smeel of coolant from my turbo area.
It needs topping up from time to time and my coolant system seems to be full of flakey crap even after ive changed the coolant.I think its just an old hose breaking down inside?
When the coolant low level goes off i rev the engine a little and i think it helps to flow the coolant around.All my expansion hose\'s are good and i think the rad cap is fine as theres no vacum in the rad hoses after its cooled down.
My car isnt smoking either so its abit of a mystery lol,
There is a water feed to the turbo, so this might be leaking
I have a spare cap you can have. Does the expansion bottle lose or increase in water as well? A place which they can go is the lower UIM, this usually just drips down onto the exhaust and burns away so you may not see anything and may be giving you your coolant burning smell. A good cap is essential as you never know just what its doing when you are motoring along. For the turbo to fail or even an engine I would have thought you would have some sign ie white smoke etc. You could for piece of mind get a compression test done. Always remember that you can use more water in the winter due to the constant use of high heat inside the car. If the matrix is blocked then I can give you one of those as well but this is a dash out job. One easy way is to just bridge the matrix hoses inside the engine bay but only worth doing if you know it leaks and also only for the summer, Normal 15mm copper pipe is perfect.
Quote from: pdtaylor18;669467I have a spare cap you can have. Does the expansion bottle lose or increase in water as well? A place which they can go is the lower UIM, this usually just drips down onto the exhaust and burns away so you may not see anything and may be giving you your coolant burning smell. A good cap is essential as you never know just what its doing when you are motoring along. For the turbo to fail or even an engine I would have thought you would have some sign ie white smoke etc. You could for piece of mind get a compression test done. Always remember that you can use more water in the winter due to the constant use of high heat inside the car. If the matrix is blocked then I can give you one of those as well but this is a dash out job. One easy way is to just bridge the matrix hoses inside the engine bay but only worth doing if you know it leaks and also only for the summer, Normal 15mm copper pipe is perfect.
if i could get that rad cap from you pete that would be great, thanx. i havent really watched the expansion bottle much but i am now. i can say that it has never over flowed at idle. but like you said, hard telling whats going on when on the road. i know for sure, i did get a bit of white smoke just at start up. but nothing afterwards. nothing that would warn me something was going bad.
thank you to everyone trying to help me figure this out. please please keep the ideas coming:D
ok - here\'s the advice I gave to mitch for his leak - which he found.
Check main pipes - to and from the front of the engne to the radiator, and check rad isn\'t weaping. Also check the small hose from radiator neck to expansion tank is not leaking and that the hose is on the correct place on the expansion tank - if it\'s wrong you could be pushing coolant out through the expansion tank.
Next is the heater matrix circuit - the water feed comes from the back of the engine - rear iron - Mitch\'s leak was here. It passes through a bendy bit of hose to the bulkhead and then into the car. You\'ve checked heater matrix for leaks - dampness and coolant smells - then the return hose comes out of the bulkhead, through a hose to a length of ally pipe along the side of the engine bay - check for leaks along it\'s length - and then a small hose back to the radiator.
Then there\'s the small water circuit - comes out of the top of the engine under the throttle body - this nipple is prone to corosion - then through a small length of pipe into the throttle body, then from there it feeds the side of the BAC valve (on top of the engine above the turbo area) and then back to the water pump housing.
Last is the turbo coolant circuit - it comes out of the rear rotor housing (but there are holes on both housings), into the Lower inlet manifold and emerges to the rear on the outer edge - where a small black hard pipe feeds coolant to the outside edge of the turbo - then it passes through another bit of hard pipe on the inside (nearest engine) - through a small length of hose and back into the water pump housing (behind oil metering pump).
If you are smelling coolant around the turbo, it could be leaking from either side of the lower inlet manifold - either where the LIM meets the engine block - that gasket can break - and be leaking onto the hot exhaust manifold beneath. It could be leaking from where the water feed leaves the LIM to go to the turbo, or from either banjo bolt on either side of the turbo or from the small hose section behind the OMP.
Hope that gives you a few more ideas...
thanx prof. i was just going over the system in the fsm. thats what i was thinking too. that area is the only place i cant get a mirror and flashlight. i guess ill have to get creative and figure out a way to look around those parts.....its gotta be going somewhere. i need to double check the small hoses on the expansion tank. im thinking of ordering new hoses, well at least the major ones while im at it. i just hope i find the issue before the issue becomes a big problem and finds me
let us know how you get on because mine is leaking from somewhere and a smell of coolant is evident from the turbo area.
an update but not an update but a hatchback
thanx for offering a rad cap pete, but figured ill just pick up a new one. might as well get new parts installed as i go along.
had the car idling again looking around for leaks and just had a thought.....are there different temp thermostat? i know i mentioned it before but is 77 C sound about normal? again, this is off the commander.
tomorrow i plan on taking the car out for a quick pin. ill see then if having a new rad cap does anything to anything.
when the car cools down are the rad hoses sucked in as if there was a vaccum in the cooling circuit?
no not at all.
right if i were you go and find some dye i used i on my r5 turbo when i could not find the leak and trust me you will see it no problem once its in makes your coolant look like predator blood lol
no idea where to get any tho as there was some at a garage i used to work at and its the only time ive seen it
sounds like some fun stuff....any more info on it? ill see if random words produces something in google
i think the dye glows under uv light same way as you look for leaks on a\\c systems
similar issue to a friend.
get a tester that samples the water out of your cooling system which tells you if your combustion gasses are escaping into your water. Thats how my friend diagnosed his water seal failure.
something like this i believe
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ENGINE-HEAD-COMBUSTION-LEAK-CRACKED-BLOCK-TESTER_W0QQitemZ360230662455QQcmdZViewItem?rvr_id=&rvr_id=&cguid=382dac121250a0aad4b69276ff9ca5ad
im still lost......
with a new rad cap nothing has changed. i wasnt expecting it too. i did notice after starting it first thing, it does smoke. does that mean water seal or turbo? but does not smoke the entire time. after about 30 sec or so it does stop.
i had to turn it off after letting it run for acouple of minutes because of the low coolant buzzer. i slowly lifted the cap and let alot of air out filled the rad and went on my way. funny thing, the air coming out of the vents was almost hot. and car temp sat about 79c.
hopefully on the way home from work the air will be almost hot again. chilly out tonight. ill see what happens tomorrow.
Quote from: monterx7;671621im still lost......
with a new rad cap nothing has changed. i wasnt expecting it too. i did notice after starting it first thing, it does smoke. does that mean water seal or turbo? but does not smoke the entire time. after about 30 sec or so it does stop.
i had to turn it off after letting it run for acouple of minutes because of the low coolant buzzer. i slowly lifted the cap and let alot of air out filled the rad and went on my way. funny thing, the air coming out of the vents was almost hot. and car temp sat about 79c.
hopefully on the way home from work the air will be almost hot again. chilly out tonight. ill see what happens tomorrow.
are you sure the heater isnt working just because you have an air lock there?
im honestly not sure.
now that i have a good rad cap im hoping that will help in some way or another....on the drive home air was cool again and low coolant buzzer kept going on and off. ill check the overflow bottle with day light.
so if i have smoke at first start of the day, but not for long amount of time, and loss of coolant, does that mean i have a blown water seal?
ill top off the coolant and see what happens tomorrow
Quote from: monterx7;671648im honestly not sure.
now that i have a good rad cap im hoping that will help in some way or another....on the drive home air was cool again and low coolant buzzer kept going on and off. ill check the overflow bottle with day light.
so if i have smoke at first start of the day, but not for long amount of time, and loss of coolant, does that mean i have a blown water seal?
ill top off the coolant and see what happens tomorrow
They can all smoke a bit when cold - depends on the smoke colour. The car runs very rich on startup - so there is a considerable amount of unburnt fuel in the exhaust during the first minute or two. The engine also seals better when warm, so there is some oil burnt on startup.
Normal smoke is grey/bluish but can be more on the white side - if it smells sweetish then maybe it\'s coolant pooling in the rotor - but it\'s equally likely if you do have a leak it\'s coming out from the outer seal.
I wonder if it\'s worth putting a flourescent die in the water and using a uv light to see if you\'ve any leaks anywhere ?
i want to try the flourerscent dye trick....ill be looking that stuff up today and hopefully ordering it today too. there shouldnt be any issue shipping that stuff right?
i would get some dye and a spare rad cap drill a hole in the top of the rad cap and the base of the sprung seal fit a tyre vale in the top of the cap and pump some pressure in or dont be cheap and buy a pressure tester lol if you have a leak it will show as a pressure drop and nothing will be too hot to touch etc and the dye should show you where it is
i havent got the colored dye yet but i did pick up a compression tester. did acouple tests to try and figure out where this coolant is going, but came up STILL with nothing.
first off, the coolant level is raising in the overflow bottle. just not sure if its from when i slowly release pressure with the rad cap. and it is a new rad cap.
second, i pulled off the rad cap and pulled the egi fuse for this next test. had the wife turn the key while i watched the coolant at the rad. after acouple of seconds i saw what seemed to be consistant air bubbles. so that got me thinking....
next, i pulled leading plugs so i could see what would come out. turned the key, compressions sound good and nothing out of the rear rotor. front sound good, but had what i think was fuel mist coming out. that leading plug was wet when i pulled it and the wife said it smelt like fule. so maybe a leaky injector on the front (great another issue).
next, installed comp tester (regular piston tester) into each rotor housing with the check valve pushed in. turned the key with the rad cap on and off. if i had a blown water seal should there be a difference with and without cap? well i thought so. but no difference on the front and rear rotor.
after messing around with different combos of this sort, i re-installed both plugs left the rad cap off then turned the key. strange thing, no air bubbles......
I\'m just in the process of rebuilding my engine because a water seal let go.
I did the compression test same as you\'ve done - and got no obvious sign I had an issue either. I was thinking about how that would be and the only conclusion I can come up with is that the compression test only gives a pressure reading without combustion - so it\'s about checking seals - at 7 BAR or there abouts - it\'s possible for the water seal to still hold against the water pressure, but with much higher combustion pressures it will give and you see the evidence of this as bubbles in the coolant.
The problem is that bubbles in the coolant can just be air that\'s got into the system from a slow leak, and then is being pushed around to the radiator by the water pump once the engine is run.
There is a chemical test for combustion products in the coolant - it may be worth trying that - at least you\'d know one way or the other.
Having said all of the above - you have several of the symptoms:
- Coolant being pushed into expansion bottle
- Bubbles in the radiator when engine running
- Coolant level drop
But of course there are possible explanations for all of those that don\'t involve coolant seal failure.
I had my coolent buzzer go off as there was a leak in the pipe going from the block to the heater matrix (down next to the plugs below where the oil filter is) it was just a small leak, but was enough to leak when the engine was on lol
Quote from: Prof;672253There is a chemical test for combustion products in the coolant - it may be worth trying that - at least you\'d know one way or the other.
i was looking into this. just not sure where to buy from
the first thing you need to do is fill the system completly and bleed it so youhave no air in it. trying to do tests when you know there maybe air in the heater matrix or in the system from the leaks before will not help you.
you need to start from a clean sheet of paper so to speak. put the heater to hot open any in line bleed valves if you have them and get the system properly full. once youve run it up and the engine is hot with the thermostat open (test this by seeing if the top and bottom hosses are bloody hot on the rad not just the top one) turn the engine off lett the pressure drop then check your levels one last time top them up as needed then go through all your checks. run the engine up so its to the stage where its at high temps and the system is pressurised then start checking your pipes,rad for weeping,heat from the heater,if you find nothing take it for a 10 minute run then come back let the pressure drop and check your levels. if you try any of the above before you have bleed the system and sorted the levels all you will get is the existing air in the system causing you issues.
im thinking i found it!
before getting the car into the garage last night i made sure the floor was nice and dry. when i went out today to start tearing it apart i looked under and found ALOT of coolant. i pulled the air pump and parts before starting anything. naturally i looked in the engine bay above the coolant on the floor. the lower rad hose was wet near the rad. kept looking up noticed a trail of coolant under the lower rad hose up to the return line from the turbo, up the water pump housing then finally up to the thermo housing. i THINK its from there. strange thing is ive looked around the lower hose area when all this first started, and everything was dry. or this could just be new problem.
so hopefully tomorrow i can find a gasket, if not then a tube of rtv.
Fingers crossed for you bud. Maybe the leak has got worse so you didn\'t notice it first time round.
i pulled the thermo housing today and guess what? the o ring was not in correctly. does anyone know where i can buy just the o ring?
I got mine from Rotechniks - but it\'s a standard Mazda part - Thermostat gasket or something it\'s called.
when i wanted one for the rad filler neck - i took it to a local plumbing place who had a box full of washers - spent about 15 mins finding one that matched and handed over the 27p for it ( or some silly amount like that )
i did something to that effect with the same part grinder. but the thermo seal/gasket is round yes, but the seal/gasket itself has a square shape to it. wonder what a normal o-ring would do in its place.
should use the proper part for this one - thermostat won\'t seat properly otherwise
ahhhhhhhhhh didnt realise it was square
i think its a
N3C1-15-173 @ £2.00 ex vat - BUT thats a old price list ( and i think it could be an old part number aswell )
i did a search and i dont think there is a mazda dealer near me.
since i didnt have a new gasket i decided to try and reuse the old one. i know i know, bad idea. while im waitn for my mazdatrix order to come in i figured ill give it a go. just like you would expect, it didnt work. so for now the car sits in the garage until i get my parts.
i think the closest mazda dealer is in cambridge. or does someone know of any other one near swaffham
Looks like Cambridge one is your closest, but they should be able to post that part to you.:Thumbs-up