what's up guys-
Happy new year.

After a massive cleaning effort today, I noticed a few things. I'm sure you all have the answer to this but here goes.
After I drove to the car wash, I opened my hood and the coolant overflow bottle was hissing.. it was full and there was obviously a good bit of pressure and or heat behind it. Only reason I'm curious about this is because my temp gauge only moves about this far : ----- before it stops; less than half way to the mid point. so I don't really know how hot its getting. It doesn't "smell" like its overheating...
Anyone else have this hissing?
Also, while cleaning the engine, I pulled up on the oil filler neck and it moved out with little effort. very little. I'm not worried about it falling out, but shouldn't it be a little more snug?
One last thing- (for now) My arm rest console was broken into 3 pieces. I have epoxy'd it together and I plan on painting it along with my shifter/radio bezel (making my interior near perfect ) The only problem is that the rubber arm rest smells like gas. I have soaked it in dawn detergent and scrubbed. no dice. I have soaked it in simple green and near boiling water. Still stinks. I even fabreezed the damn thing. anyone ever had to deal with this?

thanks

 

Okay, well, I don't mean to be the grim reaper here but hissing out of a rotary engine's overflow bottle is a very bad thing. This is a tell-tale sign that the engine's water jacket O-rings are blown and engines gases are getting into the cooling system. Hopefully it's something else but that's what it sounds like to me. Have you been loosing coolant lately? Does you car's exhaust smell sweet like coolant burning? These are other signs that would inidicate a blown O-ring.

Good luck!

 

yeah it should be a little tighter. Just put a block of wood on top and tap the wood with a hammer till the filler neck is a little tighter in the housing. It's a press-fit part so that should fix it.

 

uhhh damn.
It does smell a little sweet. Havent had the car long enough to tell if im loosing coolant. Its pretty full now, though. If that is the case, how long will the engine last- and it is a total rebuild that needs to happen?

Thanks for your reply.

 

You should stop driving it now if its making white smoke out the exhuast. As inittab said, the rotor compression is pressurizing the coolant system system if the water seal is indeed broken. Coolant will also pass through and get into the rotor and mess up the rotor and housing. It will lead to more parts having to be replaced if you decide to rebuild it. Or you can drive it till it pops and get a new, used, or rebuilt motor from a variety of sources any where from $950 to infinity.
I don't remember if the 1st gen 12As has a coolant passage around the intake manifold like some of the 2nd gen 13Bs but you can look into that, but that usually would make coolant in the intake resulting white smoke from the exhaust but no bubbles in the coolant reservoir, so I wouldn't count on it being a leak at the manifold. Sorry May want to start looking into engine prices.

 

Hey thanks-
but I have to say, I havent seen any smoke from the car at all. it does smell sweet, but no smoke yet. Maybe it just started and hasnt started to smoke yet, but so far so good. At anyrate, Ill start looking...

 

My old 13b did the same. After a few hard runs the coolant from the bottle would explode out and go all over my hood...it still ran like this for a LONG time. It sounds your just in the beginning of this so you'll still have a while in my opinion. What i did do though was zip tie the coolant bottle closed so no more coolant would splash over my car. My engine ended up losing an apex seal so the other problem never became a big deal. It still passed emissions like that also, the engine blew a few weeks later.

 

Take the car to a mechanic shop and have them do a chemical test of your coolant to determine if there are exhaust gases present before you assume the worst.

 

Yeah- I am going to take it first thing tomorrow. But at least I know what to ask about now. Regardless of what they say- I think Ill run her till she wont rote no more...

 

As innitab said, put a block of wood on it and hit it with a hammer. Mine was loose and I attacked it with a rubber mallet. I cant now lift weight off the suspention of the car with the filler neck whereas before I could take it off instead of the cap .

~T.J.

 

as always - thnals for the advice. Any ideas on the gas smell in the rubber..?

 

Time..... thats about all I know to get rid of petroleum smell. How long has it been like that, just since you epoxied it together?

 

Update for those who care:

Took the car to Autotech Motorsports in SD. After looking at the Hissing problem they deduced that its my cooling system backed up due to dirt and neglect and that it needs to be flushed. to say the least I'm happy about that. Ill get it flushed out and see if it continues.

Thanks for the tip on the filler neck, Ill tap it in this weekend.

An the gas smell- Damnit thats annoying- Its not because of the epoxy- and the rest of the interior doesn't smell at all. Its like someone dipped the dam thing in it. The rubber part is in perfect condition other than the smell, so I hate to find another, but damn... gas.

By the way - this was my first time dealing with Autotech, and man those guys are nice. Took their time explaining things to me- gave me several options on some work I wanted them to do, and all of it was priced right. Props to Autotech.

 

That's great news and sounds like a reasonable explaination, hopefully they're correct. Oh, and keep us posted of your progress, we can undoubtedly learn some stuff from your experiences.

As far as the gas smell goes, do you know if the charcoal canister is still hooked up? The canister helps with the gas fumes.

 

ewww gas stink inside the car! Head down to the junkyards and find yourself another armrest.
Jeff and the Autotech bunch are great.