Todd Staples

I have a small leak that I am pretty sure is coming from my rear engine seal and not my tranny. Has anyone had any luck in using an oil leak additive to stop this? Or is this not a good thing to do.
Thanks,
TCS

rhinor61

Not a good idea, basically your engine uses the motor oil to inject it into the engine to lubricate the seals. I don't think these sealer additives burn very well and could cause carbon build up.


Just get the leak fixed.......


John

LongDuck

Agreed - adding anything to the oil is a bad idea because whatever is circulating for coolant and lubrication is ALSO getting injected and burned.

Some of the stuff out there that would be fine in any piston engine would be absolutely drastic in any rotary engine. The best case is will thicken your oil enough to reduce injected oil flow, decreaseing lubrication of apex seals, increasing engine heat and leading to premature failure of internal engine components. Worst case is it gums up your seals and kills compression, leading to a mostly-dead motor (nothing that MMO might clean up, though...).

IME, stay away from anything but pure oil in your oil system. It's what Mazda designed, and works well as long as you don't do anything out of the ordinary. YMMV,

ray green

iTrader: (14)

Well, it probably depends a lot on just what's leaking, but I had real good results using a sealer for "brown engine leaks" to fix a pretty serious leak (about 1 quart/1000 miles) that was in the front rotor housing seal, oozing out just in front of the 12A logo on the top left of the engine. This thing dripped when the engine was running and had everything inside the engine compartment pretty much covered in oil. I didn't expect much from the leak sealer, but with the only choice being an engine rebuild, I switched to heavier oil (Castrol 20-50) and added a 16 oz bottle of the sealer. Sure enough, after a few hundred miles I could tell it was leaking less, although it didn't stop all together. So I repeated this procedure with each oil change (every 3000 miles) and after about 10,000 the leak was all but gone, no more needing to add oil between changes. I put another 10,000 on that engine before the car was rear ended (at 133,000 on the original engine) without any problems with performance, etc.

For what it's worth
Ray

ray green

iTrader: (14)

The product is: "Premium No Leak Engine Sealer for Dark Brown Leaks" manufactured by Gold Eagle (www.goldeagle.com). I got it at WalMart. However I think other equivalent products would probably work. Incidently, the engine in my 84 is still running very strong and not leaking badly (there is some, but not enough to require adding oil between changes). I plan to do the body work and keep driving it when my 85 dies. It's hard to know about "carbon build up" and "clogged cats" (the 84 only has the little ones, which seem to be OK), but I can say after 20,000 miles using the sealer the engine runs just as well if not better and the leak is virtually gone. I didn't expect this stuff to work, figuring it was a snake oil fix, but I'm glad I gave it a try - essentially I have already gotten 20,000 free miles out of that engine. Be sure to use the Castrol 20-50W too, I think this helps.