so i rebuilt my n/a 13b. unfortunately, it lost compression in the rear rotor after dying on the road. after weighing my options, i’ve decided to rebuild it.

i’ve opened it back up and noticed there was no scarring on the housings or irons and the apex seals are perfectly fine. but what i did notice that the water seal had either A: overheated and had a small blowout or B: i installed it improperly. the rotor seems to be fine, but there is a couple rough patches on the side of the rotor, the same side that the side seals are pushed in. they were flush with the rotor and do not spring up like they should, which i believe caused the lack of compression.

so basically i’m wondering if i should buy a new rotor or attempt to resurface it somehow.





was this caused by the water jacket leaking? or could there be something wrong with the rotor itself.

 

What does the other side of the rotor look like? Is the rotor gear pushed out at all?

That rotor got very very hot in places where it really shouldn't have been able to.

Another thought... is the oil jet for that rotor plugged?

 

The other side of the rotor is perfectly fine. and the gear does not seem to be pushed out at all.

And I agree... it definitely got too hot. Also, by oil jet do you mean a part of the OMP? It was broken when i got the engine so i just decided to block it off and pre-mix instead.



update: could this be caused by the oil jets you mentioned?

 

The oil jet in the eccentric shaft.

What does the other side of the rotor look like?

 

Hi everyone,
When I tore down my Atkins rebuilt engine due to a rotor bearing failure I noticed that out of the 12 side seals most were stuck down flush with the rotors!

What is the root cause of this? I had a low compression flooding problem on my original engine at about 70k miles until I threw an apex seal at 75k.

My replacement rebuilt engine started having flooding issues at about 25k miles, I thought it was because of leaking fuel injectors but it not that.

Upon installing freshly rebuilt injectors the flooding problem was still there!

So, I was losing compression to either the 3mm apex seals which I ordered to prevent this, or the side seals which act as piston rings on a conventional engine.

Again, what is the cause of the side seals sticking in their grooves, not enough side seal clearance?

What can I do to prevent the seals from sticking? Different oil, more pre-mix, doing a water injection into the dynamic chamber every year?

Any response is appreciated.


Rotor bearing failure at 30 mph

 

Has nothing to do with sideseal clearance.

what happened was you spun a bearing and the rotor wobbled causing the rotor to smash against the irons and stick the seals in their grooves.

 

I can see that happening on the rotor that failed.

The other rotor was fine, the bearing looked okay, the entire rotor came out smoothly. But still the side seals and corner seals were stuck down flush.
When I tried to remove these side seals they were stuck so much that I snapped off pieces to get them out!
Is this a normal thing over time or is there something I did not do like change the oil more often? This engine had 75K miles on it
I made sure the oil level was always at the full mark, checked every week.
In the FSM it says to check the side seal clearance, perhaps this was not done correctly on this rebuilt engine?

 

It wobbled and smacked the iron. Check irons. I bet there are witness marks.