So I started to put my stupid engine back together and low and behold, my inner and outter coolant seals will NOT stay in thier grooves. I am using Hylomar on them, and I have not time once I get em installed to get the housing over them.

What, engine builders, have you done to remedy this? These are not stock seals. From the looks of it, these are Mazdatrix gasket sets. (I got an unassembled engine with rebuild kit with my totally stripped car and boxes of parts the PO took off the car) They are both one piece and the outter is black with no blue marking and the inner one looks like its a light brown color with a clear coating.

Im wondering if they have sat out for so long that they shrunk. I dunno, I know seals can do that if not installed but I dont know about these ones. GRRRRRR

 

Mazdatrix seals ARE Mazda seals. They're just a dealer for Mazda.

 

Ok, well they dont follow what I ahve in my FSM, off All Data, OR from my haynes manual if ya follow what I mean. Not markings, all one piece. I guess they upgraded em. So how do I get em to stay in thier grooves?

 

Stock Mazda coolant seals ARE one piece. How else could it work?

 

Ok regardless, whats the issue with them not staying put? lol. To think, I gotta do a 3.1 LIM gasket on a GM tomorrow. Im actually lookin forward to that instead of this.

 

I dunno, I haven't done that yet. From the videos it looked fairly simple, but maybe there's some trick I haven't heard of. Sorry I'm not more of a help.

 

Its cool. I just wiped off the 2 with hylomar on em and go at it again tomorrow. ITs 11 PM and I had a long ******* day. Not a good time to try and screw with this right now. Ehh. Ill get er together tomorrow and hopefully in this week coming up.

 

anyone else? Im gonna be putting it together after work, so Id like some ideas or pointers.

 

In one of the rebiuld videos I watched the seal is first stretched and than put in the groove with sometype of gasket seeler.

 

are your grooves clean? i had to scrape my grooves clean first. some of my seals did have to stretch a tiny bit but they stayed put just fine and they were from mazdatrix

 

The outers were a tad more difficult for me to put in than the inners but make sure the grooves are clean and that you are not trying to put in the seals the wrong way. I had actually pinched a seal the first time I put the block together. Fortunately I had a bad feeling and broke it all back down. Just take your time with it.

 

Trust me the grooves are clean. I guess I will try to stretch the seals a bit then eh.

 

aim me if you want.. doriftokin

first thing i want to know is what seals they are. i know you dont know but maybe you can still help me. do they have a round profile or a square one? the inner seal, does it have a seam on it? does it have the white teflon coating on 2 sides of it?

anyway.. the biggest trouble i had was with rotary aviation seals. they are the round ones. they seem to be smaller than they should be and kept rolling out of the grooves, i was told that i could stretch them a bit but still.. thats kind of scary to me. i heated them up a bit by hanging them in front of a garage heater for a few minutes. after that, it took 3 of us to get the housing on while holding the seals in place with lots of hylomar and feeler gauges. took about 6 hrs to get the motor together and 5 of those hours were fighting the damned water seals.

 

Well I just finished the short block (Will post pics of it when I get to it) and it was a mo fo. The intermediate plate was the worst to deal with. It was just me and my son doing it and he really didnt have a clue about "lift the E shaft a little more then an inch" then the steady stream of vulgarities after that. j/k. Its together, it rotates freely, and Ill finish the damn thing tomorrow lol.

 

 

Hell yeah. Just showered and cracked me a frosty beer. Gonna relax and watch Drift Alliance Bad as Hell DVD and then sleep. Tomorrow, I finish the engine, brake lines and bled, and finish the wiring in the engine bay. LOOOOOONNNNGGGG Day tomorrow.

 

No offense man.... but you probably should have done more research before attempting a rebuild. I suggest you visit nopistons.com and read their engine building section. Great information there.

As far as the o-rings, sometimes they need to be stretched into shape. Some people build wooden jigs for this and let it sit for a week or so until its the perfect size. Hylomar is non-hardening, so... you have some time. Its RTV that is time sensitive.

You should buy a video like the atkins one or the RA one. Shoot me an IM (in my public profile) and we'll chat more.