My 7 died. A guy i know that is not a rotary specialist said i blew a head gasket, however, i know there are no head therefore no head gasket. It was leaking water out of the exhaust pipe and i'm still new to rotaries and don't know what would cause this. My question is what is the problem (or likely problem) and is it fixable or is the motor just a very oversized paperweight now?? any help/advice that could get my baby back on the road would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Mike

 

Sounds like you possible blew a water seal but I'm probably wrong. How man miles are on the motor?

 

im not certain about the mileage but i think its about 130k

 

was there a lot of white smoke coming out the exhaust? coolant disappearing out of the radiator? coolant on the spark plugs?

 

it died back in december so i could be mistaken but i do remember white smoke and coolant was disappearing as fast as i could put it in, but im not sure about coolant on the plugs

 

You sure it's water and not raw gasoline?

 

sounds like a coolant seal to me. i do belive on some models there is a seal on the intake manifold. could someone verify this?

what year and model is your car?

 

like i said it was several months ago but i believe it was water

 

it,s an 84 GSL

 

sounds like rebuild time....but look at the bright side, you didn't blow an apex seal or side seal so you have a better chance of reusing the stock internals...not to mention an excuse to tear the motor down and port the **** out of it!

 

you say rebuild time but use stock internals so what will change just the seals and gaskets??

 

sometimes the intake gasket and/or the o rings fail, and then water leaks into the intake, which would cause coolant loss, and coolant in the exhaust. its pretty easy to remove the intake, and check the gasket/o rings. i just had to replace mine and it was like 12 bucks for the parts. hopefully that's all it is, but if it died completely, hmmm....maybe someone else has a better opinion.

 

but thats totally different than a coolant seal or whatever that calls for a rebuild right? i believe i have a small coolant leak on top of my housings on the carb side so im going to replace that. but theres also a coolant passage gasket/seal that if it breaks its kind of like a dowel oil pin leak where you have to disassemble your engine to fix it. that is totally different than the intake manifold gasket right? im not ready to rebuild my engine! hah kuz of time/money and space. also i cant explain things that good noticed above. =\

 

i apreciate all the advice i will check those seals but i dont need the car at this moment so i think im gonna take roundabouts advice and rebuild and "port the **** out of it"

 

First test: Remove radiator cap and look for 'champagne bubbles'. If those are present, you blew a coolant seal, requires a rebuild. If you can, do a hydrocarbon test on the coolant. That will tell if exhaust gases are getting into the cooling system, if yes, same as above.

If neither of these tests show positive, remove intake manifold and inspect the o-rings between the block and intake, replace them and the gasket. Fire up the engine again, if you are still losing coolant, you have and internal coolant failure and a rebuild is required. If it solves the problem, rotor on.