I've got a blown jspec from one of my customer's cars. His oil cooler lines let go while on the highway, and (he says) he saw the pressure drop and threw it in neutral and coasted to a stop. After stopping then he turned it off. (!) What I've got is 90-90-100 off the front rotor and 0 off the rear on any faces. With the loss of oil, I'm thinking he may have blown an oil seal which could explain the crankcase pressure while compression testing.

I'm pulling it apart, I just wanted to see some opinions and pre-diag.

 

Blown side seals with the oil seals.

 

my thoughts almost exactly, didn't wanna condemn the side seals until i opened it but you're right.

 

Well open it up man and save us the suspense!

 

I tore apart an oil starvation case once and the bearings had deteriorated to a point where the rotors were colliding with the side plates. So bad they had galled up the plates and welded the side seals in their grooves. IIRC the rear was much worse than the front.

 

Nobody watches their oil pressure gauge that close.

I'll bet he heard the rattle first, then felt power drop, then saw the 0 oil pressure, then shut down..

 

probabally what happened ..good call

i try to watch my guages like a hawk, but sometimes i forget

 

I check mine every 15-30 seconds along with my speedo and temp, and when I come to a stop. I love my rusty little FC and don't want it to die (at least not until I can get a nice TII and need an excuse to tear it down).

 

Why doesn't that damn buzzer go off when the oil pressure drops below a certain pressure??? I mean it goes off for every other reason

 

#&*((##(* EXACTLY! damn i hate that thing@!

 

I was kinda disappointed that Mazda didn't think of that and at least but a secondary buzzer in. It could be a pleasant tone indicating that you were running one or two quarts low and you need to refill, then have the one nasty one for when you're about to make your engine explode due to starvation.

That way all those morons that own rotaries and don't check their oil every other fill-up can stop killing these wonderful machines

 

*gasp* You only check your oil every OTHER fillup?

Of course, I'm premixing, so it's more of the "Yup, it's about a quart high, time to change the oil." check.

I can see someone noticing if the gauge were to fairly rapidly drop. It moves fairly quickly, and I'm willing to bet that in normal highway cruising if one of my gauges dropped to 0 I'd catch the motion in my peripheral vision and see it within 5 seconds.

However, "Engine off" is the good failsafe to use when something like that goes wrong.

When you get it apart, pics?

-=Russ=-

 

"and (he says) he saw the pressure drop and threw it in neutral and coasted to a stop. After stopping then he turned it off. (!)"

Should have written "and (he says) 'when' he saw the pressure drop 'he' threw it in neutral and coasted to a stop. After stopping then he turned it off. (!)

Who knows who long it was on zero???

Who can get away with checking their oil every other fillup??? The way mine was burning I would stop at Kmart and buy a case of oil, put some gas in every other quart!!!

The buzzer goes off when you are almost 2 quarts low and you sharply turn right. If you put in two quarts you'll be just over the full line. The way mine was burning it that meant I could get home from Kmart and the oil level would be just right.......for about 75 miles.

 

I premix as well as most of the other guys. I don't have any real blow-by problems though, and my OMP is disabled, so it works out pretty well.