hey i am new to this site and also talking to a guy about getting his 86 rx7 GXL and the guy says the coolant is bypassing the engine and going into the overflow. im guessing its either the thermostat stayin closed or the head gasket doesn't have the holes punched out so the coolsnt can flow freely. any thoughs i figured i woud ask you since you got one and all...lol. i have no clue bout the rotary engines... just trying to find out the prob before i buy it ya know.

 

LoL, welcome to the world of rotaries. And just a fyi, we dont have head gaskets.

I would bet it is the thermostat. Change out the thermostat first to the oem tempurature(I think it's 185) and see what it does. How long has it been driven while it has done this? If for a while I don't think I would touch it. No coolant in the engine can cause some serious warpage.

Also I would check the pressure caps to see if they are worn out or anything.

 

Head gasket...funny.

Check to make sure you don't have a pinhole leak in the hose that goes from the rad cap to the overflow. A leak will allow coolant to be pushed to the tank but not drawn back in.

With the car stone cold, open the rad cap and then start it. Do you see a steady stream of bubbles from inside the engine? When you rev the engine, do the bubbles increase or does coolant gush out violently? If the answer to any of those questions is yes then combustion gasses may be getting forced into the cooling system via a failed coolant o-ring or o-ring groove.

 

And now my post looks dumb Thanks Aaron...

 

sorry guys i have been a honda guy for years...

the guy im getting the car from says the thremo, hoses, radiator cap has all been replaced. but where is the o ring at. im new to the whole rotary thing and have not gotten the car yet. i am talking to him to get it but im tryin to figure the problem out before i get it. its an hour away from me and i don't want it to break down on the way home ya know.

 

i had a bad thermostat and after about 2 minutes of running coolent would start gushing everywhere and even managed to pop the rad cap off.

just take the thermostat out and see if that helps it will take longer to warm up but it should be running right then

 

so your saying run it without the thermotat?? i thought it was more than likely than the thermo was bad. he said it is new but it could be bad out of the box.

okay from previous posts how come they don't have had gaskets??

dows anyone have a pic of the engine that comes in the 86 gxl?

 

they dont have head gaskets because the dont have heads or cam shafts or pistons or valves or anyof that 20th century nonsense. u said u are a honda guy well forget everything u know and start searching and get a haynes manual.

and fyi follow the top radiator hose to a neck with another cap on it and take the 2 bolts out on the neck under that will be the thermostat.
and all a thermostat does is hold back the coolent so that the engine warms up faster then pops open and allows the coolent to flow. removing it just takes alittle longer to warm the engine no biggie. but really i think they cost less then 10 dollars so u could just replace it also

 

i have been doing some searches and when i got the car i was gonna get a manual so i don't mess anything up. thanks for the help tho and i just wanna see a stock engine not a boosted one or a swap. thats all i have found for image searches. im not new to forums i searched first but not every problem is the same.

 

faq section at the top of the second gen section about 4 or 5 posts down u will see a link to the factory service manual (fsm) and there u will see an entire engine layout and all that good stuff

 

thanks for the help! ill take a look.

 

that helped out alot. it gives me a better idea about the engine and locations of parts. where is a good place to read up on the rotary engines?? i don't understand i am used to pistons and such...lol

 

My coolant seals are out. And when I first figuring this out, I had her running in my driveway, PUMPING out white smoke. So, then some woman walks by on the road and just shouts down to me, "It looks like the head gasket is fried!" I turn around looking pissed, "Yeah, I'll have to check that out, thanks."

 

was it doing the same thing the one im talking about is??

 

If your talking to me, it doesn't sound like the car your talking about is doing that. It would be smoking from the exhaust and losing lots of coolant, maybe even hard to start. Always go OEM thermostats.

Ask the guy if it recently overheated and can't hold coolant. I think your just looking at a thermo.

 

No, the cooling system will not work properly without a thermostat installed. Race-prepared RX-7's have a special plug modification that allows the system to work properly without a thermostat.

The thermostat needs to be the Mazda brand. The aftermarket brands are not made correctly. Also, the thermostat needs to be installed with the "jiggle pin" upward.

The Wankel rotary engine does the same thing as any other Otto cycle 4-stroke engine, but it just goes about doing it in a different way. Most of your basic engine knowledge still applies. Here are some links that may help with understanding the Wankel rotary engine:
http://www.rotaryengineillustrated.com/RE101.html
http://smrmicro.com/re-ky.pdf
http://www.rotaryaviation.com/Books_videos.htm

 

he said if you drive it you have to stop to put more water in it to keep it from overheating about every hour... and i don't think he has driven it in awhile. but i figured it was the thremo not working right. what is different about the mazda made thermos and the aftermarket ones. the temp it takes to open them??

 

that sounds like a coolent seal failutre which requires a full rebuild

 

You really have no idea what your talking about at all. Advice like that could easily **** somebodies engine up, know what your talking about or don't speak.

Go to Mazda, get yourself an OEM thermostat. Read up on "Coolant Bleeding Procedures" In the FSM, or Haynes manual. Inspect the car running for leaks and white sweet smelling smoke out the exhaust. If you have white smoke which smells sweet, its a really distinctive smell. More that likely the motors got blown coolant seals.

Do your self a favor, don't go buying POS neglected RX7s. Not only does it involve a lot of posts about problems, it makes the 2nd gens look extremely unreliable and shitty. When in reality, they are fairly reliable with proper maintenance.

 

+1
If its losing that much coolant I would guess the seals are going. And that means rebuild.

As for the thermostats, I've just heard that aftermarket ones are more likely to fail. Failing thermostat is what screwed me. It wasn't OEM.

 

sry if i gave bad advice but iv been running around without one for 300 miles now and not had a single problem

 

Put one back in quickly before summer hits. The stock water temp gauge is not very accurate, and your engine will be fried by the time the gauge indicates a high reading.

 

k will do i dont have 1 becasue im waiting for a new filler neck to come but sry for bad info i was just going on waht i thought was working for me

 

i just need to when i get it that is just go to mazda and get an oem thermo. i thought running it without ne sounded funny. i might still be a honda guy but i know when stuff sounds off!