Car: 1993 FD3, non sequential set up.
I\'ve had an issue for a wee while now. Whe the the engine is running I can hear quiet a loud noise like the flywheel or pulleys are catching on something, to me it reminds me of sticking a lollipop stick in the back wheel of your push bike except it is a metallic sound. It quietens down the higher the rpm, and when you are in gear and driving, but if you come off the throttle and put it back on you hear it catch again.
Now, I\'ve taken it to a local garage and he couldn\'t find anything after removing the gearbox, clutch and fly wheel. When he put it back together it the noise went away for a couple of months. He was not a rotary engine specialist so took his opinions with a very large pinch of salt, especially when he spoke about the engine like it was a piston. Durr.
I then took it apart myself, back down including the flywheel. I couldn\'t see anyting worn or catching so put it all back together and the noise is still there. The reason I keep taking the flywheel off is because on first install of the engine I forget to torque up the fly wheel and it made this noise its making now, and then fell off.
Anyone shed any light on this? I am starting to think it could be a worn rear bearing, but I would have thought the engine would run like a sack of poo, but the engine still runs fine, with no loss of power, I have even restricted boost to 9psi to keep it a little safe as well. Engine also idles fine.
Only other thing I can think of is clutch or gearbox. Reason gearbox is because I do not know if the garage refilled the box up full, and maybe if it was half a litre short, maybe something has given inside? Again I am not sure about the clutch as it looked fine, no cracks, excessive wear marks, etc...
Getting bummed about it, as she looks nice, but sounds like a tramp driving locally!
Any chance you can record a video or soundclip of this issue.
Going by your description reminds me of a very similar issue my friend had, although his car was\'nt a rotary the problem sounds very similar.
In the end it was the crank that became mis aligned, so as it was turning is was catching on the housing, he also had clutch issues, that might have led to this.
Is the sound constant? when you accelerate, does the noise become faster? Im assuming you have checked all the pulleys etc.
If you know of someone that has a spare transmission you can borrow to test, might be an idea....the more you can troubleshoot and get things out of the equation the easier itll become to locate.
Feel your pain....having a nice car that sounds bad is def not good :(
Hope you sort it mate.
I\'ll try and get some footage of the problem.
Yeah the sound speeds up with rpm, probably why it is less noticable at higher rpm. I hope its not equive to the crank as that will probably mean new engine or big rebuild. :(
I\'m gonn try undoing the clutch whilst still on to see if the clutch is misaligned or something but I may be picking at loose straws...but at least that will be another thing I can check off the list! lol.
Haven\'t got a spare box atm, and when I did I have I sold it as it was taking up space..lol.
know exactly what you mean, mine does it as well.
i doubt it\'s anything misaligned in the engine; mine is only 5,000 miles old and if one of the three moving parts were responsible for the noise you\'d probably be seeing bits of apex seal exiting the exhaust.
i swapped my turbo pack for a later \'97 set with zero play, so i\'m sure it has nothing to do with them. i haven\'t properly looked for it yet, but i\'m willing to bet it\'s one of the ancillaries like the alternator or ps pump - it could even be something silly like a bit of loom catching on the back of a pulley.
Ah dude, let me know what you find with yours, I\'ve just got some footage, and the middle section makes it sound hell of a lot worse than it is. I\'m gonna go and remove the power steering belt now to see if its that! As the sound seems to come from there, but it seems to echo around the engine so difficult to say where exactly the sound is coming from!
Will get the footage up asap! Should be up later in a bit! lol
Tried getting the footage up but it keeps failing, will keep trying.
I have ruled out ancilleries (water pump, alt, power steering), took belts off and played around, noise still there with them disconnected.
So I\'m still at a loss as to what it is, one thing I didn\'t check properly was the release bearing. I remember turning it by hand and it turned very smooth and seemed tight.
Any other ideas?
Hey
sorry to hear it\'s still bugging you :(
I know this may seem obvious, but let\'s look at it simply for a sec.
We know as you press the accelerator the noise gets faster, so from that we know that it\'s a rotating part that rotates with acceleration. So what parts of the car rotate when the peddle is pressed. When you think about it like that it\'s narrowed Down to the flywheel, crank eccentric shaft, pulleys and belts and not much else really.
I remember Reading on another forum about a ticking noise and they mentioned something to do with carbon deposits and some flap things near where the turbos are.......as you cann tell I didn\'t read it thoroughly but just another thing you might wanna look into.
Def like to hear/see the footage, might become apparent when people on here see it.
Good luck, keep us posted.
Could it be something stuck near the clutch and gearbox? I know there is an inspection cover etc, maybe something has got wedged near there and its pinging against the teeth or the flywheel?
Sure it\'s not an exhaust leak/gasket in the turbo system? These can both show themselves as a \'ticking\'
Quote from: SiH;695610Sure it\'s not an exhaust leak/gasket in the turbo system? These can both show themselves as a \'ticking\'
i ruled out exhaust leaks early on using the basis of "there\'s no way i can be bothered to take the twins off more than once in a lifetime". :D
Quote from: jackaleks;695626i ruled out exhaust leaks early on using the basis of "there\'s no way i can be bothered to take the twins off more than once in a lifetime". :D
Haha, its not that bad! Just after the first few hours of fustration, it drives you insane!:Hammer
pulley wheel rubbing / catching / knocking the bottom IC pipe? have you a hard pipe kit? ;)
not for me, its not a a ticking sound, more like the sound you get if a bit of metal was catching on the clutch pressure plate fins.
Still struggling to get the vid uploaded, I need to get propper broadband! lol.
Quote from: jackaleks;695626i ruled out exhaust leaks early on using the basis of "there\'s no way i can be bothered to take the twins off more than once in a lifetime". :D
I took that a step further - it went something like \'I\'ve got these scrotes off, they\'re never going back on, are they? Balls. How much is a single setup?\'
mine seems to make the same noise, although its fairly quiet when the car is cold, gets louder as it warms up. although seems to completely dissappear over about 2500 revs as the power comes in, so will be watching this thread like a hawk!!
I also have a slight rattle on the clutch release bearing (it goes when you depress the clutch) so was thinking could these be connected possibly, although they do sound like 2 different noises??
Quote from: slater1982;695934I also have a slight rattle on the clutch release bearing (it goes when you depress the clutch) so was thinking could these be connected possibly, although they do sound like 2 different noises??
That\'s not clutch release bearing, that\'s the input shaft bearing on the box.
Clutch release bearing noise shows itself when you depress the clutch, but isn\'t there when it\'s up. Input shaft/layshaft/whatever you want to call it bearing does it when the clutch is up, and is most prominent when the car\'s in neutral.
I seem to be plauged by it, whatever car I buy! My FD sounds like it\'s got a straight cut box sometimes, it\'s that bad.
i have just assembled an engine doing basically the same thing,, "chink" ing in the same place every 360 degree rotation
with endfloat/ front stack loose,, no clashing,, upon tightening front pulley bolt,, motor has a "chink" and a tight spot every rotation
so,, process of elimination has discovered it doesnt do it when the rear counterweight is not attached
( and endfloat set and pulley bolt tightened )
inspection of the inside surface of the counterweight reveals its clashing on part of the rear stat bearing
this is due to the counterweight ( and the others i have ) sitting too far up the taper on the crank
this is due ( in my example ) to a previous builder having linished the crank on the taper
however,, on yours ,, likely due to the flywheel having come loose,, and both the taper in the flywheel,, and that on the crank are possibly both worn
-- which brings me to this post --- and handy pic showing the surface in question
http://www.mazdarotaryclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63141
myself,, i am having that inside face of the counterweight milled back 1mm
( it isnt supposed to ride on the underside of the stat )
you may have to investigate if you have similar clash,, and may have to mill the flywheel in similar location to fix
Are yo 100% sure of the origin of the counterweight? I had something very similar - turned out that the person on here who basically jsut breaks cars and replies to wanted ads had sold me a counterweight that didn\'t fit, and didn\'t even appear to be from an FD. I still have it as he point blank refused to accept that there was anything wrong with it.
In my case it was worse though, as it completely bound up the e-shaft.
100% certain,,,,, there is only one factory marked counterweight
-- rx4
the rest are unmarked,, but i also know how to differentiate them by measuring the machined rim flats
rx4,, luckily has the rear mass marked 1029A ( or 1029,,or just 29 )
and the front mass marked 1757
( the only factory marked counterweights out of all of them, mazda got lazy )
-- and i have tried 2 different 1029A masses on the same crank,, same issue
it\'s definitely to far up the taper due to previous crank polishing, and the clash is visible on the underside of the rear weight
simple lathe work will clearance it OK,, and will be in action soon
Right, uploading the video of the rattling is not going to happen with mobile broadband and propper broadband aint happening till the end of the month.
So I have decided to remove the gearbox again in a couple of weekends when I\'m next off.
It could be the fly wheel is not seating correctly on the shaft as I have noticed play in the fly wheel when I was under the car the other day inspecting what I could. The only leverage I could get was an up and down motion, which seemed to seat it better for the run I took it on after, but its back to normal since that run.
If the rear bearing has gone, I\'m thinking a replacement is needed obviously.
I have been on rotary art who seem to have these but I canna make heads or tails atm of what the differences are:
T=1.980mm yellow or T=1.983mm green or T=1.986mm brown or T=1.989mm black or T=1.992mm blue
T=1.988mm yellow or T=1.991mm green or T=1.994mm brown or T=1.997mm black and T=2.000mm blue
What is T? Is it thickness of bearing? Is there a quick way of telling once the fly is off with out removing the bearing?
This issue can only be one of the above two other than gearbox failure, but the sound appears to come from the fly end after using the metal bar method of a stethoscope to pin point where the sound is origonating.
I am hoping to find out what bearing I need by midday on the first day strip down, so I can order it and have it in the post asap to be refitted with out have the rex on axle stands for too long.
Also on another note, are there any rotary specialists in south wales? Even just for parts at the least?
Quick update:
All sorted now, this noise was the flywheel being slightly loose on the shaft and catching on part of the gearbox housing.
The main bearing is not how I expected as it is a metal cylinder sheath with oil holes with oil running thourgh it constantly.
The T above stands for the thickness of the sheath.
You can change these with out having to dismantle the engine for anyone that would like to know! lol.
I is happy again!!!!
You can only really change the rear one relatively easily once gearbox is off,the front one requires quite a bit of parts removal including front cover.
Regards
Carl