should the AST spit water out at start up ???

[grinder]

went to look at a FD last night

when we tried to start it , water spat out the side of the AST

the tank wasnt split - the pipe had come off the side

now this water went about 1 foot - should this have that sort of pressure when you are cranking the engine

or does it sounds like the water seals have failed and pressuring the system

the car had no water in the rad or AST looked like it had all gone back into the overflow bottle

now this car has been stood for 4 months

any ideas chaps ?

Stu

[nikp]

No way! The system is not pressurized from first start. The coolant is cold, and therefore not under pressure. If it\'s chucking coolant out the AST, sounds like the engine is pressurizing the coolant system itself - in other words water seal failure.

(No wonder they\'re selling it! :p)

[grinder]

thats what we thought - we couldnt tell if it had fired up as we was shouting for him to turn it off !!

oh well £2k saved

[Clarky]

Im not an expert, but seems same as happened to me i dont think you should have any pressure in the ast at start up , as the water is cold, so cranking the engine when cold would give you cranking pressure if the water seals have gone.
 
 

went to look at a FD last night
 
when we tried to start it , water spat out the side of the AST
 
the tank wasnt split - the pipe had come off the side
 
now this water went about 1 foot - should this have that sort of pressure when you are cranking the engine
 
or does it sounds like the water seals have failed and pressuring the system
 
the car had no water in the rad or AST looked like it had all gone back into the overflow bottle
 
now this car has been stood for 4 months
 
any ideas chaps ?
 
Stu

[nikp]

Mind you, if the FD is only being sold for £2k - it could still be a bargain. Get the engine built by Carl or someone, and you have yourself a working FD, with guarenteed engine rebuild for the price of £4.5k, or something similar. That sounds like a bargain to me!

[grinder]

dont need the hassle to be honest - at 2K i was happy for the car - just the AST made me and shaunwil worry a lot - so we walked away from it

its the black one on ebay that needs some TLC

[nikp]

Fair enough - would still make a bargain of a car though. But i aint buying it either (Me and me missus was thinking about having one each! :p)

[grinder]

yeah i know what you mean nik !

oh well it just wasnt to be - the car sounded ideal though

1 - price
2 - it was black
3 - jap import
4 - cheap tax ( 1.3 )
5 - 280 BHP
6 - miles - about 29-32K Miles

[nikp]

Well, it may be possible that the seals have not gone. It just seems very low mileage for it to have gone already.

Are you sure the AST had not split? May have been a hair line split. But i can\'t think of any other reason why the coolant would come out like that. Did it start when it was cold? I guess you didn\'t let it warm up did you? If you did, did it re-start ok?

[grinder]

the pipe want connected on the right hand side - and came shooting out of there

once it did that we didnt even try again to start it - it need oil and water ideally and the lad selling it was a bit of a prat to be honest - he didnt have a clue apart from it was a RX7

it tried to start , fired , then the water came out , then we stopped it

it was all confusing - we dont know if the water came out once it fired - or when it was cranking

and it was covered in straches and the rear NS rear arch was flat ( looked like container damage )

shaun said that it looked like the bottom end of the cheap jap market

[banned advertiser]

I would give it a second look, I had a car once that went through a faze of spitting the pipe off, and was not a duff engine.
Take rad cap with you, top it up, pop cap on and see how it works.

[nikp]

shaun said that it looked like the bottom end of the cheap jap market

Sounds like mine!! :p

Mines getting a lot better now though! Nice spoiler, scratched interior panels sorted, rattles are getting sorted. Soon i\'ll have a nice car! All i need now is a respray!

[grinder]

would changing the rad cap stop the pipe from spitting off - and we still cant work out if the engine should have pressure at that point

its just a gamble at 2K

[nikp]

Buying a second hand car is always a gamble!

If the pressure cap can no longer hold any pressure what so ever, then it could let the coolant out at startup. A working one will give you piece of mind that it\'s not the pressure cap, and is more likely a dead engine.

[grinder]

ahhhhhhh sneaky !!

just means going back to halifax and spend the time on it - and i dont think thats doable to be honest

hummmm maybe the FD just isnt for me !!