So the car ran fine without any sign of an oil leak for the first week or so worth of driving. I go to take a look under the hood this weekend and find the oil leak has returned. Heres some pictures to help with the diagnosis





The car maintains normal oil pressure when driving and I've seen no real change in anything other than the smell of the oil burning on the top of the engine block. Any ideas what is wrong? And am I looking at an engine rebuild?

 

You have a dowel o-ring leak. The only way to fix it completely is to rebuild. I have driven a car with a leak like yours for 50k miles. I just had to make sure the oil level didn't get to low and clean the mess every so often. Just think of it as a slow continuous oil change. You add oil, it leaks out, you add oil....

 

Yeah thats what I've been doing lol. A little 20w-50 every once in a while

 

Question, is it possible to take the front iron off without pulling the motor out of the car?

 

i'm sure it's possible...but it's gonna make it a million times harder because you have to take everything off, so i'm gonna say NO.

 

Wouldnt I have to do that either way when i take it apart, in or out of the car

 

Also, if I have to pull the motor out itself, should I give it a nice paint job? If so how would one go about doing that for a rotary

 

I used VHT Flame Proof Header Paint for my housings and end plates. it came out nicely.

 

The o-ring that's leaking is between the front iron and the front rotor housing. The motor is held together by long bolts which go in from the rear of the engine and are threaded into the front iron. These bolts (over a dozen) must be removed to get the front iron off. No way to do it in the car. When you remove these Tension bolts the whole motor will come apart.

 

^^ that explains what i meant by taking everything off

 

Ah gotcha, that would make sense. So while I have the motor out, what all should I do? Should I do a full rebuild? Paint the housings?

 

well, i suppose since engine needs to be taken apart might as well do a rebuilt, hopefully you can just do away with replacing gaskets and o-rings, personally i like polished housings a lot better, but its up to you if you want to paint them or not. clean the engine bay, repaint what needs to be repainted, replace things if needed/want to. anything you can think off that would make life easier if the engine is out, go crazy

 

Your leak is coming from the dowel pin. There's an o ring that goes there. The only way to fix it is rebuilding the engine. You could buy the gasket set seperate but you'll already have the engine open so might as well replace everything & do a full rebuild. That happened to me too. It's common in rotaries after so many miles.

 

Polished housings and red or blue irons? How do we feel lol

Should I just get this kit or should I get one with the hard seals as well.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Mazda...QQcmdZViewItem

I notced the ones with the hard seals are considerably more expensive, should I stick to the old, if it ain't broke, dont fix it?

 

i'm not sure of another way to check besides measuring everything and making sure its well within spec. if you are then you could just get by with replacing the gaskets only.

 

If you are below 100k and the dowel pin o-ring is the only problem, the hard seals are likely to be re-useable. Over 100K not so much. As mentioned before, you should measure all the seals carefully. If they are within Mazda's specs they can be reused. There's nothing like a motor with all new, properly fit, hard seals. I strongly recommend purchasing one of the rebuild DVD/videos available from Atkins, Rotary Aviation, Pineapple Racing, Mazdatrix etc. Watch it a couple times before you start ordering parts or turning bolts.

 

And especially before stating your reassembly. There's a couple places where it's real inconveninet to have to stop and say, "wait... what now?" and go look at the book.

Measure twice, cut once.

 

So an update is in order. I dont think I can drive the car as is. The oil is actually leaking to the point now that its blowing back onto the exhaust (the last cat to be exact, and ONLY the last cat) and smoking like all hell.

Im not ready just yet to go through with the rebuild due to my lack of cash currently, and the fact Im replacing my busted exhaust and getting new rubber first since those both need to get done ASAP

Any quick fixes you guys can think for the mean time for the leak?

 

Try some Lucas oil stabilizer, it's basically just real thick petroleum, and it'll thicken up the oil enough to possibly help slow down the leak, as well as helping to lube your engine. Also if you're planning to do a rebuild soon, you might as well try pouring in some of that stop leak stuff. Just be careful you don't leave it in there too long before the rebuild as it can gum up and cause a myriad of problems.

 

Well I ordered the gasket kit I needed and I'm getting a loaner engine hoist today so I should be beginning operation rebuild fairly soon here. For the meantime, back to regular piston engines =(