http://youtube.com/watch?v=kNIIfJkpu8k ...bad coolant seal right?

 

it doesnt seem like you have bad coolant seals it looks like you have air in the system still...and during the time that the most bubbles came up its probably the thermostat that just opened and released all the air bubbles in your system...just keep the funnel on there to bleed the system of the air

 

"And then all hell breaks loose"?
I saw like maybe seven or eight little tiny bubbles casually make their way out of the rad...I was expecting Old Faithful or something.

You have no smoke/steam from the exhaust and hardly any air in the system- looks pretty A-OK to me.

Why are you thinking bad coolant seals?

 

Typically when a coolant seal fails you will have coolant loss without a puddle on your driveway, and somewhat frequent "topping off" the coolant level at the overflow bottle. In more severe cases you can hear/ see bubbles at the coolant bottle. I'm doing a rebuild right now for a local guy whos engine had a failed coolant seal and front iron. He had no running symptoms or misfires, no smoke, but he did have a constant stream of bubbles (larger bubbles than in your vid) at the filler neck at idle. This is what was found when I tore down the engine:


I don't always find iron housing failure as in this case, sometimes just crumbling seals.

I also noticed on every failed coolant seal there was a slight "combustion gas smell" somewhat like what you would smell at the tailpipe. You might try a sniff test at your funnel when you have bubbles.

Excellent video by the way. If you find that you have bad seals, you might consider asking a Moderator to make this thread a "sticky".

 

I am taking it to a Mazda dealership that sais they wont charge me if they don't find a problem. I used to have erratic temperatures, and loss of coolant with out puddles under my car, but the car did spew coolant out of the overflow (A LOT) and I did hear a boiling/bubbling sound after turning the car off (might have been the coolant evaporating from the higher temp that the car was running due to the air pockets). I wont know for sure until the dealership checks it out, but according to the lisle vid, would you say its a coolant seal or just air in the system and I might have a small leak somewhere, or another reason for my coolant disappearing.

 

I bled the system yesterday, zeroed the trip meter and drove it around to see if the temperature problem was fixed, and if I have a coolant seal problem, how long it takes to drink the coolant. I was driving aggressively (high shifts around 5-6k), and returned to my house with 30 miles on the trip meter. I turned it off but forgot to check the coolant level. When I tried to start her up the next morning, the add coolant buzzer came on right away. I checked the exhaust and there was little white puffs of smoke that stopped after a minute or so. Also, when filling it with coolant using the lisle funnel again, another substance seeped to the top (might be oil? or gas? something else perhaps? The add coolant buzzer didnt come on while driving, it only came on the next morning which leads me to believe that I have a small leak somewhere, the problem is there arn't any visible coolant remnants under my car. Help, this whole coolant problem is starting to really **** me off. While I was typing this post, the coolant was in the lisle funnel making its way into the system, and all of the sudden the add coolant light/buzzer came on...wtf?!?!? No visible leaks, everything read good, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

 

paranoid much?


try pressure testing your pressure cap

 

ok if its not a coolant seal, where is all of my coolant going?

 

have you recently flushed your cooling sytem?

 

No, what does that have to do with loosing coolant?

 

youre making me paranoid

how did you bleed your system?

 

because if you recently flushed it sometime it takes alot of coolant to fill it back up...when i flushed mine the coolant buzzer kept coming on for about a week...each time it went off i just topped of neck and now it doesnt do it anymore.

 

Bottom line is....if you're losing coolant with no external leak, then it is an internal leak (coolant seal). What a dealer will likely do to confirm it is what's called a "block test". I use this test often where I work and most competent shops do as well. The test takes a sample of the gases at the filler neck while the engine is running. A blue liquid is added to a suction tool that is placed at the filler neck. A squeeze bulb is used to draw gas samples into the tool. If the liquid turns from blue to a yellowish-green, you have combustion gases from a bad coolant seal. It's that simple and it's a fail-proof method.

 

If you had a blown coolant seal it would be blowing a lot of smoke.

So let's just assume it's not blown. Have you checked your thermostat? If it's not opening up it could be your problem. If your coolant seal was blown it would all be going out the tailpipe and not the overflow tank like it would if it was the thermostat.

 

This is not necessarily true. I don't know why people think that you MUST be blowing smoke while running. My car would only smoke if it sat for a long time. If it was running coolant didn't generally make it INTO my chambers, as the exhaust was pushing it out the hole. I never saw smoke after 2 minutes of running whether it continued to idle or was taken out and redlined.

 

Point taken. It would really depend on where the coolant leak was. I'm sure a breach near the intake stroke would contribute more to smoking than a breach near the combustion stroke of the cycle, but I could be wrong. Either way, it wouldn't make the overflow tank erm......overflow that much. I'm assuming the overflow tank would be empty as the loss of pressure in the system from the coolant leak would suck the available fluid right out.

Btw, mine only blew smoke over 4k rpm and when it was started cold......until the day it popped and it smoked like crazy. Was a sad day.

 

^ I suppose you're right. With a "blown" coolant seal it will smoke a good bit. With a "blowing" or "on the way out" coolant seal it may not.

My iron had failed as you see in the pic of the coolant seal groove above (different channel, but also in the exhaust area).

 

a real blown coolant seal. Note how the bubbles are continuous and don't stop, rather than the sudden lurch you had.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4p5wlc6Ec...elated&search=

An ocassional bubble is fine. It just means you're getting air out of the system. I bet if you try again the same thing will happen but with less bubbling. Then if you let out some more air it'll hardly bubble at all when you test again.

And is that water or Evan's? Cause if it's water you need to add some antifreeze before you get rust.