jimtesla

Hey

Couple questions..........I have an 85 gsl-se 92k......needs a new tranny........has been sitting for two weeks............

Noticed a small oil leak coming from what I believe is the Oil Filter.........Changed the filter to a mazda filter and sprayed down the engine to clean the oil......Took the car out for a spin.........

Checked the oil and it had bubbles on the dip stick.........

Today I looked to see if any more oil leaked........a little wet......old oil dripped down.......but no new oil.....

I checked my oil level........no bubbles...........but for some reason I smelled the dipstick........smells like gas......

Only change to the car was removing clogged cat.....and muffler......replaced with straight pipe and power pulse muffler......

What gives?

kettlman

iTrader: (2)

did you smell your oil before? i've got a new engine and it always smells like gas, nothin big. remember they make gas out of oil. the bubbles, take the car for a good spin again and check the oil, you should have bubbles. the oil is fed through the engine and it gets bubbles alot, especially if you got the bee-hive cooler. you have no problem.

jimtesla

I just never checked the oil before after driving......Nor have I ever thought about smelling it.......

What can cause an oil leak just below the oil filter on
the SE.....? Or do you think I had a bad filter.......or filter not tight enough.........Is there an O ring that goes out ? Never had an oil leak before on the car....

LongDuck

The SE's (and other under-radiator air/oil cooler cars) have 2 O-rings that reside under the Oil Filter Tower that usually require changing about every 10 years or you get the dreaded 'heater return line oil leak'. This leak drips down from the base of the oil filter pedestal and right onto, yep, you guessed it - the heater hose return line to the block.

In time, the rubber hose will swell up, get spongy and eventually burst at a time and place that will create the most problems for you. On my 2 RX's, I have installed a plastic 90 degree bend on that hose, and always carry around some standard, non-descript 90 degree bend heater hose in the correct diameter, just in case. When the heater return line goes, you lose your coolant and right fast.

These 2 O-rings are about $3 each from Mazdatrix, and the oil filter pedestal is held on by two 10mm nuts on the underside of the pedestal - yours may be oiled up and hard to see at this point, but they're down there (pointing up - toward the filter). Easy replacement;

1. remove oil filter (oh, yeah, A: buy O-rings...)
2. get a 10mm socket wrench or box end and remove 2 nuts holding the pedestal in place
3. remove pedestal upward, revealing the O-rings seated in small, round cutouts,
4. pull out crushed down, brittle old O-rings, replace with new (lubricate with fresh engine oil before installation)
5. reinstall oil filter pedestal
6. Check heater return hose where it enters the block - if spongy or noticeably swollen around the hose clamp - REPLACE IMMEDIATELY!!

As for the gasoline smell in the engine oil and bubbles - bubbles are fairly normal after driving the car around. I make it a point of checking oil every fuel stop when I fill up; fill the tank, pop the hood and check oil - allows time for the oil bubbles to settle out and gives a better reading on the dipstick, no guessing.

On the gasoline smell in the oil; this is fairly common and could be due to it sitting for so long, particularly if flooded on restart after 2 weeks of sitting. What happens is that the gas (when flooded) gets past the oil control rings around the center gears on each rotor and this drains down into the oil pan with the rest of the oil. Raw liquid fuel can't be compressed, and so it must find it's way out of the combustion chamber somehow - the oil control rings are the path of least resistance. Gasoline (Benzene chains) molecules are much smaller than natural oil chains, so it's better to have oil that smells like gas than blue smoke coming out of your tailpipe.

I wouldn't worry about either at this point, but if the oil consumption goes up (not due to leaking at the filter pedestal...) and you notice blue smoke all the time, you may have a rebuild coming up soon. HTH,

jimtesla

Thanks on the O-ring instructions......

It just started leaking on the garage floor........

I will check the hose tomorrow.......

jimtesla

Hey Longduck......

Awesome car........Any pictures of your engine bay?

I have the RB header and pre silencer....How did you get the rusted header bolts off? Any other way to communicate with you?

Thanks

Jim

LongDuck

Since this is your thread - it technically isn't 'hijacking', so...

My engine bay is still in the works. Actually, the car is up on jacks tonight as I was finally installing my braided stainless brake lines and rebuilding the front brake calipers. My engine bay includes the Racing Beat front strut tower (color matched to my external yellow paint - Mazda BZ-21T as on the Mazda 6), and includes my cold air intake to the EFI airbox and air flow meter.

Unfortunately, the bulk of the engine bay is still 'creme' colored where it isn't covered in 20 years of dirt and oil and more dirt (the underside of the hood and both fenders are yellow, however). My eventual plan is to clean out the engine bay and repaint all exposed surfaces in black to better contract with the yellow body and strut brace.

On my RB exhaust - I didn't have any problems getting the header bolts out at all. They came out pretty easily, and I had installed a RB header on my 12A 80LS, so I was familiar with the process, in fact, it was much easier to install this system on the SE than on my 80 - the Thermal Reactor is shaped such that it's almost impossible to reach any of the nuts that hold it on.

I may take some pictures in the near future and add something to my signature line - I get a lot of questions from folks asking to see the engine. It's not much - it's a mostly stock 13B from an SE with stock EFI short of my cold air mods and standard stuff...

Thanks for the nice comments - fresh paint did wonders for this car.

jimtesla

Since you mentioned that you are in a smog state.....How do you get by with the header? do you have all the other stuff on stand by......and swap over.....Or do you know a trick to pass with the header.....I thought the smog pump and other smog goodies was useless with the header hooked up...

Thanks

Jim

My car is going under the knife next week...........Its going to be christmas time for the SE............If all goes well........I will have a Special Thread......

LongDuck

The RB header and presilencer get swapped out each March just in time for April emissions testing!

This keeps mileage down on the cats, and performance up all other times of the year. Also, I noticed that the stock SE exhaust system is SO quiet compared to the RB exhaust - it's good to have a reminder of that once a year, if only for a month. I've also noticed better low-end torque with the stock exhaust manifold and cats - likely a result of more backpressure to increase torque at the lower end.

My smog pump (airpump) and ACV are still installed and pumping air into my presilencer. This makes the swap of emissions stuff that much easier, since it's just 4 bolts for the header, 2 bolts for the presilencer to tailpipe, and 2 10mm bolts for the bypass air tube leading back up to the ACV and '6'-ports.

I have gotten the swap down to a science - about 2 hours from jacks up to jacks down. Worth it, IMO, but a small hassle to pay for better top end performance.