Hi, after finishing off my vacuum/coolant hose job, my bottom radiator hose/inlet has been leaking coolant at an enormous rate, so much so that on a 70 mile trip from bath i ended up on the hard shoulder of the M3 at 2am with no coolant at all.
While i was fixing the vac hoses as my 2nd turbo wasnt working i replaced all the coolant hoses in the engine compartment with mazda ones from Rotechniks, i took the water pump off and cleaned it (lubricated it with silicone spray) i didnt change the seal between the engine bay and pump tho, then i completely flushed the coolant system (even removed the nut on the rotor housing) and filled it up with 6 litres of 4life performance coolant (from demontweeks), i bought an aluminium AST from WGT, changed the coolant filler cap, cleaned out the coolant filler, changed oil/fuel/filters etc.
After the first drive i noticed a lot of coolant was leaking out of the bottom radiator hose area when i stopped, but couldnt make out exactly where as i dont have a pressure tester and wasnt to excited about getting under the car with the engine on and hot coolant pissing out, so i took gave the bottom rad hose a squeeze with the engine on and the coolant seemed to coming out of the outlet on the bottom of the rad.
i taped up the rad hose and put some waterproof sealant on outside of the hose/rad outlet, and it seemed to slow the leak,
so thought the car would be ok if i took some coolant with me on a trip to bath( sisters bday), was fine on the way there but after an evening parked up it had dumped all the coolant in the system!
Filled it up again to get home but got caught in M3 jam which seemed to exacerbate the problem and ended up on M3 with no coolant.
Today i took out the rad, checked it visually for holes, couldnt see anything, but the drain plug had broken in half but the screw was still inside, got that out and replaced it with 9mm bolt from diy\'s, filled her up but about 2 miles from home, the coolant buzzer went off, stopped the car and waited 25 minutes for engine to cool and put 3 more litres of coolant in, 1/2 mile from my house coolant buzzer goes off, and engine temp rapidly rises so about 200 metres away i get out and push.
Really sorry to go on and on and give you all a monologue but im flat broke atm so theres no chance of me taking the car to a rotary specialist so i was hoping some1 had an idea as to what i have done to the car and what i can do about it.
(ps the car had a rebuild at Rxheaven at 48k and its at 52k,i think the radiator is a brass? one which i recently heard from rotechniks might have defects, +the reason why i havent taken it to rxheaven is they charge 185 quid for a tow and they dont like being paid late.)
(pps theres no bubbles coming up from the coolant filler tank when starting from cold with cap off as far as i can see, and i was told the car had 3mm racing apex seasl on so i hope they survived the 25 seconds at full temp while i was stuck on hammersmtih roundabout :( )
Wish there was a rotary specialist in central london!
Many thanks for any help,
Ruben
:confused:
Sounds more like an engine problem to me.
Kind regards
Carl
Seen as it\'s only done 4k iles on the rebuilt engine shouldn\'t it be covered under warranty?
Iain
Hi peeps
This sounds like a problem i had with my own FD about a week ago and it turned out that the standard hose clamp had lost it\'s sping and wasn\'t gripping the rad pipe all that well.
The problem was solved by using a Jublee hose clamp insted.
To start with i would go with " Rotary Rex7". You would be suprised the difference a new hose clip makes.
Jon
Are you fans working? If it dumped loads of coolant after you stopped at the end of a journey it sounds like the coolant boiled...
air locks within the coolant sys?
Also sometimes if the clamps are not on properly dosen t seal? when i changed my rad i put a very small amount of gasket seal around the rad hose.
you checked the hose for Rips ?
Could be a lot of things cant assume its the engine straight away
shaQ
Thanks for the help guys, i took the rad out again today (finally, bloody rain stopped for a couple of hours), but im going to buy a larger aluminium one from dragon next week+which is better, silicone pipes or hard pipes?
How do i check the fans are activating? The coolant does seem to be boiling when i switch the engine off after a short run.
you putting straight water in your coolant sys ? do you mix the right coolant with water ?