Help

[cannonballer]

It\'s probably been asked a thousand times but can anybody tell me the symptoms of water seal failure.

Cheers

[neil_jdmr]

Its been asked a thousand times mate,
 
 
Flooding
Low water level
smoke
dead
 
 
 
if you want any more info dont be lazy and use the search

[cannonballer]

Ok Mum, sorry for asking.

[clive]

It\'s probably been asked a thousand times but can anybody tell me the symptoms of water seal failure.

Cheers

No worries about asking again as it\'s one of the primary things that many FD owners fear,

First of all I have known people think they have had water seal failure but it\'s actually because they are putting water into the three water caps they can see under the bonnet with the result being they now have an engine thats pushing out water, but this is purely because they have put too much water in the system ,

Only fill the one actually on the engine and leave the other two alone and the system will regulate itself,

Loss of water is the obvious thing and this only needs to be a very small amount to put the buzzer on,

Couple of others are,

Starting on one rotor due to water in one chamber,

Smoke, and I have checked smoke / water seal connection in two ways before now,

One is start the car and "sniff" the smoke coming out of the exhaust because providing the car has anti freeze in the water system then you will smell the anti freeze in the exhaust smoke,

Another way is to put the palm of your hand near the exhaust outlet and see if you get lots of water globules on your hand,

Another thing to listen for is any gurgling when you turn the engine off when its hot,

If you take the car to a garage you car also get a test to detect combustion gas in the water system,

Lastly all of the above deals with the inner water seal and as you can see from the image there are two rings, one being the inner water seal and the other being the outer,

The outer water seal can also fail and will not put combustion into the rotor housing and will just leak,

Mazda actually sent a directive to their dealers a couple of years ago to pressurise the water system and place a large piece of card under the engine overnight to detect outer water seal failure

Hope this helps

[neil_jdmr]

Ok Mum, sorry for asking.

Dont be sorry for asking mate, I wasnt trying to be a tit.
 
Or a mum for that matter:cheers

[cannonballer]

Hi Clive

Thanks for the response, all the info I needed and confirms my thoughts especially when you mention the gurgling while hot. It\'s also doing the champagne / fizzing type thing whilst the engine is running, so now I\'ve godda decide whether to break the car or sell it as it is.

Again, many thanks for all that info.

Andy