85 GSL-SE battery died.
 

Okay, I'm going to be as detailed and specific as possible.

This is about a 1985 Mazda RX-7 GSL-SE 13b Injected

Last night I was at a meeting for two and a half hours. I left my lights on during this whole time. I go out into the light rain and 50 degree weather to find that my car is, of course, dead. I grab a portable car charger and hook it up, turn it on, and it roars, sounds great, so I give it some gas, a lot of gas, to about 5000 rpm three to four times to let it warm up, and as soon as I get out to disconnect the charger, it idles for about three seconds, and dies. It idled and ran fine before all of this happened so I decided that it isnt anything that led up to this. Hopefully. It also was idling well before I gave it the gas, I just didnt want it to die.

After it died, I hooked up some jumpers and after 45 minutes decided that it was too flooded and got a ride home. I came back in the morning, and it wouldnt start again, so I tested the battery at a Wal-Mart and found that the battery was fine, but just needed a charge. I took out the spark plugs, thinking they had been soiled due to sitting in a flooded engine all night, and let them stay out for about 35-45 minutes until I got new ones. During this time, I did what I used to do with my bike when I flooded it, and cranked the engine while the spark plugs were out to flush any excess fuel out of the engine. (I see now that it was probably not a good idea) I also added a quart of non-synthetic oil to top it off (seeing as I was low anyway) and topped off my gas tank by rolling it 500 feet to the gas station on my way to a covered work area. (as it was raining all day, between light and areas of moderate rain.)

Now that I know that I have full oil, A full gas tank, New spark plugs, and that everything that I have done has been noted and put back the way I found it (including hooking up the spark plugs in the correct order. But just to check t1 is top left and l2 is lower right, correct?) Now that I have done all that, It is cranking with an unusual metallic noise, unlike last night where it would smoke and almost start.

I'm thinking that my apex seals may need to be replaced, or (I once read) I could put automatic transmission fluid into one of the spark plug holes with a 3/4 syringe to reseal the apex seals (and create a HUGE amount of smoke in the process) Please help me diagnose this noise, and get my car running again. I hope I have provided enough information, and please ask for any more that is necessary.

Cheers,
Luke Peoples

first off, u don't rev a cold engine like that to warm it up. as for the noise, unless it's got to do with the starter, i haven't a clue. hope u get it worked out.

The starter is turning but the noise is coming from the passenger side front. its sounds like a series of three, which is why I think my apex seals may be shot.

if u suspect the apex seals, pull one leading plug at a time and spin it with the starter listening for the compression pulses. should be a blast of air with each rotation of the e-shaft.

do you think doing an atf treatment on the blown seals would do it? why would they go out suddenly like this? would cranking the engine with no spark plugs do this? I have a general understanding on motorworks just not a complete understanding of rotaries and the bad vs good compared to piston

sorry for the double post, but I'm going to go do another deflood procedure and see if that works. hopefully it does.

When you did the de-flood did you:

Pull the engine fuse under the dash to disable the fuel pump?
Hold the gas pedal to the floor during cranking?
Clean and dry the plugs before trying to restart? (spray with brake cleaner and blow dry)


Need a better description of the metallic noise and it's location. Have someone else crank the engine while you have your head under the hood.

Don't get excited about ATF or apex seals yet. If the engine still fails to start but is almost there, pull start it and warm the engine up correctly.

Cold metal instant heat from 5000k pulls = very bad
if there was too much fuel from the 5000k pulls left over it could have made enough carbon resy to gunk up the spring seal, run some seafoam through a vacume line to the intake and try to get it in the combustion area to clean some possible gunk out.

Does the engine try to start at all? a studder or shimmy a hickup anything or does it just crank to no end?

It sounded as if it was just flooded, cranking to almost start, but just couldnt get past the flooding. and after I added the new spark plugs, it stopped almost starting, and now it just cranks with a weird rolling noise, coming from right near the air pump.

it started. The t1 hookup wasnt attached correctly, so as soon as I did that it roared :D

And the simplest mistakes can cause the biggest headaches.

glad to hear it!

yeah, apparently when I took off the t1 spark plug adapter, it turned and wasnt attached. Now I just need to figure out why my clutch squeaks..