Is it a kettle? No it\'s my water seals :(

[Martiny]

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.

[B9 KLF]

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

[RemarkLima]

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.

[Jit]

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!

[RemarkLima]

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.

[Jit]

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!

[RemarkLima]

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?

[Jit]

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.

[RobbieRX-7]

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?

[RemarkLima]

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