ok, i've been on this for a while... but i've asked a mechanic who says he's work with rotaries before and he's positive he can fix my gasket... but he says its gonna cost about $650. is this worth it or not? he said if i can find a better deal, he'll even match it, but i have to have a receipt of the write out.

what's the call guys?

 

EXACTLY, where is this leak. Describe the location EXACTLY. It does not sound like a front cover leak at that price.

 

well, when i bought the car. the guy told me that its been leaking oil from the drivers side and so on. i fixed the leak on the drivers side. but i found oil still leaking on the passenger's side. i wasnt too knowledgeable at the time when i bought the car, but i had already read up on a few things. i found that there was a block-off plate to where something was suppose to be(later found to be the OMP). i thought that was the leak, so i went and bought some brake cleaner and cleaned of a bunch of oil and dirt off the engine and around the area. started the engine and found the leak coming by the OMP block off, but after carefully examining... there was a stream flowing from somewhere else. so i get a flash light and find its coming from behind and under the water pump. i come here on the forum but i suppose not many encountered this leak.

later i found myself at fc3spro's problems/oil leaks. concluded my answer there, when i found "leaking from behind the main pulley." thought it would be an easy fix but read on and backed-off...

i have been driving my car on and off... it runs strong and fine, but it just leaks 4 quarts in a week if i DD it. otherwise once in a while i'll fill her up. and at night time it gets bad, seems like i'm smoking bad because the oil stream by the OMP block off drips down onto the exhaust manifold and burns off the heat. making smoky appearance behind me.

also, the mechanic said the time to do do this is going to take 7 hours, quoted off the computer. but he says he can probably do it faster than that. maybe 2 hours less... well, what do should i do guys?

 

Sounds like it's up to you. You've basically presented your options already, you just have to pick one. I personally never take my cars to a shop unless it's for something I probably don't have the right tools to do well, and at the moment alignments are about the only thing I'm not sure I can do. I rebuilt my motor a few months back in my garage and it turned out quite well. If you're capable of finding the leak, fixing it, and you have reliable transportation that isn't that RX-7 then I would take your time to do it right and know it's done right. There are MANY mechanics who say they've worked on rotaries and say they know their ****, but oh if you only knew the horror stories that follow so very often. I wouldn't risk it, especially at that price, too. I replaced my first front cover gasket in about 3 hours, and I probably wasn't working particularly fast. If the leak is actually in that vicinity I don't see how someone with any real experience would quote you at 5+ hours unless they're blowing smoke up your *** for one reason or another.

I also just plain don't trust mechanics, I've heard how most shops work and it scares the **** out of me what kind of stuff they let slide.

 

that's the thing, most people can seem like they are credible... but they might wreck it for you and say its in the contract. so i'm still stuck with a decision to make.

well, since you said it yourself. you replaced yours in 3 hours.... how'd you do it? the only thing that scared me not to do it was the holding/prying down the clutch, while working on it.

maybe if you can walk me step by step on how you did it. i'd be more confident on doing it myself.

thanks for replying guys!

 

Cut a 2x4 long enough to jam between a front seat mounting point and the clutch pedal and just make sure it won't slip off while you're working. Much to my chagrin I had to do this several times, but I used something like a scrawny 1"x2" plank and that worked fine every time.

I'd say one thing to be very careful of is tearing your pan seal. The front cover can be a bitch to get out with all the stuff that's in the way and I ended up tearing my oil pan gasket just from pulling the front cover off. I may have used silicone sealer on it, too, which might have made it stick to the cover. I kind of learned this then and especially after I started rebuilding transmissions, don't use silicone on paper seals if you can avoid it, they're usually made to seal as they are, if you need something sticky to hold them in place use only as much as needed, and I think hylomar can work, too. I don't think hylomar will set like silicone sealant does.

The biggest reason my front cover was so hard to get out was the plug that's threaded into the bottom of the front cover. The hex head sticks out a good 3/4" at the bottom and it got in my way of pulling the bottom of the cover out. btw I still need to replace my oil pan gasket, it leaks terribly despite a number of attempts to patch it, and I think I'm gonna have to use my cherry picker to hold the engine up while I unbolt at least one engine mount so I can get the pan off. Do yourself a favor and don't tear the pan gasket if you can help it.

 

i wonder ... it seems to me someone did so already. i've been under my car enough to me know too. my oil pan has blue silicon gasket all around. i thought that was no biggy since i have found no other leaks. must be the curing time they let on.

also, i read somewhere that i should jack up the tranny just until the tranny the block is off the mounts. then take off the mounts, then access the oil pan from there. also,remove radiator if you want more work space... after removing oil pan, the removal of the front cover will be easier.

how did you take the main pully off?

thanks again speed
btw this post is coming from my PS3... such hard time typing off the my controller. no other computer at home and no PS3 keyboard.

thanks again

 

Book time for the front cover really is 6.7 hours + .3 hours if you have AC, which equals 7.0 hours. Most shops cost near 100 bucks an hour, so 700 bucks is about what you'd expect to do a front cover reseal. To PROPERLY do a reseal of the front cover you MUST remove the oil pan, which involves lifting the motor to gain access, other wise it's just gonna leak again if not done correctly. Just a heads up.

 

already taken care of for $600. they fixed everything but messed up my CAS timing.

 

Well they didn't exactly do the repair right the first time, did they?

 

i guess not... but i'm somewhat satisfied on not ehaving to buy oil each week. its like oil changing by it self.