Just thought I'd check with some of the experts and see if anyone has any idea what kind of damage I'm looking at.

I rebuilt the engine a few months ago, and filled it up with water to test it, no coolant. A couple of weeks ago we were due to have some freezing temperatures here in Dallas so I drained all the water out of the car so that it wouldn't freeze and destroy the engine - didn't have any extra coolant or the time to rebleed the air out of it, so I figured I'd pick some up when I ran to the store later that week and do it right that weekend. I put the radiator cap and drain plug in the driver's seat so I'd know not to drive it.

Then before I got a chance to refill it, my wife decides to move the car back into the driveway. I told her that I hoped she didn't blow a seal or something from running it with no water (Not really thinking she had). She apologized and said she didn't know, or think about why she had to move the radiator cap to get in the car, but she said when the engine died on her, the temperature gauge wasn't high, and the car dies all the time when it's cold anyway.

Well, for my birthday, she was going to have the windows in my car tinted, so yesterday I went to put coolant and water in it. So I filled up the radiator and then went to the fill cap by the water pump and I poured water in for a while - then it started to gurgle, and I'd never really heard it do that. Then I noticed oil on the ground (more than usual). So I pulled the dipstick, and water came out.

Obviously the engine's got to come out this weekend - is there anyone with any experience with this out there that can tip me off to what I'm likely to find? I'm obviously hoping for just a blown water jacket seal, in which I'm just going to have to disassemble and clean everything then dry it before it rusts.

 

Don't blame your wife. (Even if it was her fault, it's not worth it!) Just moving the car and running it for a couple of minutes probably would not break your engine. If your cooling system is damaged, blame it on either the re builder who did not put in antifreeze.

I would check it out a little more throughly, but it may be that there were some pockets of the water still in the cooling passages that froze.

Don't jump to conclusions: You may be totally screwed. You may also just be imagining the problem and it may be just fine.

Troubleshoot the cooling system before you yank the engine. A cooling system pressure test is a good place to start. The kit is available for 'rental' at autozone. If the cooling system holds pressure, you are ok. If it doesn't, you will be able to find the leak. Start the thing (with coolant) and let it warm up, check for bubbles in the radiator etc. It may workout to be just a false alarm.

Good luck.

 

When you drain the radiator, there is still water in the engine.

You should never run without antifreeze/coolant. Sorry, but I don't know why so many think that straight water is so great. IMO, straight water is a stoopid fad that has killed so many engine(not just rotaries).

What to expect? rust, corrosion, pitting, and possibly cracks. You're lucky if you have nothing but bad seals or plugs.

 

Well, I know there's something wrong, because when I add water, it comes out of the oil dipstick - and I didn't blame my wife, she was very sorry for it all. And I was only using straight water to test the engine out - first rebuild, so I expected I was going to have to take it back apart, it's not like I think antifreeze is a fad or something. :P The plan was always to go back to 50/50 coolant after I made sure it was all working right.

No offense to any of you, but just like I didn't yell at my wife for moving the car with no water in it, I don't need to hear a bunch of **** from you guys for what I should have done. I personally just think it sucks that it happened within 200 miles of a rebuild. What I need are answers from people who know what they're talking about regarding what possible damage the engine would incur from running for a few minutes, without water, WITH water on the oil side, but without overheating, so I can go into the NEXT rebuild with reasonable expectations about what's going to need to be replaced.

Placing blame for something that happened is the most pointless thing anyone can do, all it does it strain relationships between people so that now you've got to overcome THAT *AND* fix the original problem. I'm a firm believer that as long as she knows she made a mistake, she's probably going to be harder on herself than I would be anyway, because she knows how much I love the car. Being mad at her wouldn't fix my engine, it wouldn't make me feel better, and it SURE wouldn't make it any easier to get ANYTHING done around the house at all.

So please, constructive responses only, criticizing the rebuilding practices of someone who has rebuilt exactly one engine of ANY kind in his life, with no help is pointless, too. All I can do is take my knowledge and go forward. Making fun of me for forgetting something doesn't help me or teach me a lesson, it just makes me think you're an *******.

 

With no coolant/water in the cooling system but with water in the oil I would ASSUME that there would be some sort of premature excessive wear on the working parts of the motor. Due to the fact that the oil would be diluted (despite them seperating when mixed and mashed in the internals it will create more friction). What weight oil was in it? The heavier the oil the better off you would be in a situation like this. If it didn't overheat then your coolant seals MAY still be just fine. My concern would be corrosion and the fact the freezing and thawing of what water was left in the system.

I know you don't want to hear "****" from anyone on here but you've been here for awhile and you posted this. You will get flamed for it, whether you want to or not. The "should of known better's" are going to start flying.

 

yea, i have the same problem but my water is inside the "pour oil tunnel". Mine sounds like a blown coolent/oil seal. i need funds for a engine lift......DAMIT!!!

 

I don't mind some of it as long as it's tempered with good information. My mistake was in presuming that putting the radiator cap in the seat would be enough to make someone go "Ooh, better not touch it" especially when she never drives my car. We keep a spare key in case I get locked out or something, and out of the blue she decided to move it. :P Still, she's new to cars, and it's not her fault. Just a grand irony that it didn't go 3 days without coolant, and that would be the one time she'd decide she wanted to move the car out of the yard where it had been for two weeks (so that I could work on her car in front of the garage) rather than ask me to do it.

Again, assigning blame in a situation like this is useless - at least the good point is that I can now take apart my rebuild and see how everything was holding up, although after 300 miles or so it may be hard to tell.

I wasn't running water because it was a fad, I was running water because when the oil seal blew last time it put oil in the water passages, so I was on my 5th flush. I'd put water in it, drive the engine until it warmed up then drain it all out to try to get as much of the oil out as I could. I was happy I remembered to drain it before it got cold. But then, as a friend of mine told me, it wasn't nearly cold enough (in Texas) to freeze the water in the engine, but I was trying to be safe.

I'd just like not to hear "Ooh you screwed it up!" from 40 people who couldn't even change their own oil, much less rebuild an engine without help. I came for a little help and direction, not someone trying to make me feel like **** after my car blew up. I figured that the RX7 CLUB might be a sympathetic place.

Oh, and I always run 20w50 - and the car was on for about a minute and half at most. She started it up and it ran fine AFTER the freeze, so no freeze damage. What damage there is would be entirely from running the engine with no pressure.

edit: Secondarily, I wanted this to also be a lesson to others - some engine rebuilders will bench start a regular piston engine to test it before putting it in the car. Apparently that doesn't work with a rotary.

 

I rented a lift once and it cost $180 to keep it for a week. The next time I went to Northern Tools and picked up a fold up hoist that's easy to store in my garage, and lifts 2000 lbs for $150. Don't rent one.

 

No one was harsh on you, but what did you expect to hear? Good job? I don't think anyone was criticizing your rebuilding practices. You came with a problem and we offered suggestions.

You saved $10 on antifreeze and now we are ******** for trying to help; meanwhile you are still letting your wife take the blame because 'she made a mistake'.

Good luck with all that.

 

I really don't get it, how am I blaming my wife other than by saying she drove the car when it had no coolant in it? It could have happened to anyone. Hell, that was the reason I put the radiator cap in the seat - it could very easily have been me that jumped in to go for a run around the block or something and forget I didn't have coolant in it.

And I haven't called anyone an ******* that's tried to help either.

Look, I was trying to get an idea of what I was looking at before tearing into the engine, and let people know how fast the engine blows up if you run it without water or coolant in it. I mean, seriously, forget it. I'll find out how bad it is when I open it up anyway. I was really hoping for someone like Kevin Landers or ReTed to come in and say "I worked on an engine that had that happen and it was fine except for the o-rings" or "Make sure you prelube the oil pump because running water through something with that fine of tolerances is going to scale and cut down your oil flow."

I didn't yell at my wife, or tell her it was her fault or anything. It was a mistake, it could happen to anyone. If you're trying to transfer on me what you think my feelings should be or reading way too much into what I'm saying you need to just get over it. I was looking for sage advice, not vitriol. Like I've said in almost every post I've made so far - it doesn't matter how it happened, I want to know what I'm looking at when I fix it. Placing blame is a waste of time.

And so is trying to defend myself against feelings or beliefs that you seem to think I have, so I'm unsubscribing to this thread. Thank you for those suggestions that were actually helpful. The rest of you can continue to make assumptions about hidden meanings and ascribing blame and whatnot after I'm gone. I'll help you out - be sure to use words like "transferrence" "denial" "passive-aggressive" and "latent hostility".

Again, for those of you who've actually tried to help, thank you.

 

If all she did was move it in the driveway, Im pretty sure no harm was done to the engine. it wouldnt even have a chance to get warm in such a time. unless she felt like sitting for 5 minutes revving it or something, which I doubt

 

Regarding the temperatures: With all due respect, your buddy is wrong. You were correct to be concerned about potentially freezing the water in the engine.

it got down to 27* nov 30
it got down to 26* dec 1
it got down to 23* dec. 4
it got down to 20* dec 7
it got down to 21* dec 8

Any of those temps are cold enough to freeze plain water in an engine, especially if the car was sitting and had no residual heat in the motor. Add in the wind that was blowing on several of those nights and you will easily freeze any remaining water.

It got below slightly below freezing on 3 other days not listed above that were cold enough to freeze an unprotected radiator but not an engine block.

Enough about that. I will drop it. I promise to post no more regarding your frozen engine.

Now, here is a suggestion you might be able to use; If you are trying to flush oil from the cooling system of oil, use a powerful deagreaser such as Purple Power degreaser or Simple Green. Don't use anything that is corrosive and don't leave the degreaser in for over one day. (Castrol Degreaser would work great, but will eat aluminum very aggressively so don't use that one). One flush with the degreaser then flush with straight water to remove the degreaser should do the trick.

Seriously, good luck and I hope the problem turns out better that it currently seems.

 

the person that said the block is full even after you drain the radiator is correct. even when you drain the radiator completely the block is still almost full to the rim, that is why there is a block drain.

if you didn't drain the block also all that water in the block froze and popped an expansion plug or cracked an iron on you. your description is almost spot on with a freeze plug or broken iron issue due to freezing. internal failures that cause water to be able to make its way into the oil pan are from sub zero temperature issues, not overheating issues.

 

I'm pretty sure purple power is corrosive to aluminum as well.
Also, even if the coolant seals are totally missing, coolant should not get into the oil system in any large quantity of an otherwise good engine. The oil is seperated from the combustion chamber by the oil control rings, so those would also have to be bad coolant to pour into the oil system, but then you have much more problems than just bad seals. In short, I can't think of how overheating would cause damage that would allow coolant to get in the oil system, at least in the quatities you described.
I'm going to agree with Karak and say that you froze the motor.

 

I did not know that. Thanks. I have seen it recommended for the cleaning cooling system prior to using the infamous block weld coolant seal fix. That confirms to me that the procedure is just all around a bad idea. I use the Castrol stuff on concrete. It will corrode aluminum pretty aggressively. It takes the hide off your hands as well.


Many brass monkeys were neutered in that cold snap last week as well.

 

Thanks, I appreciate the educated input, even when it points to it being my fault. I'll keep everyone posted as I take the engine apart. I gotta admit, I figured draining the radiator with the caps off would let all the water out, because it was the lowest part on the engine.

I'm rooting for you Karack and Sideways7, because that means all I have to do is take everything apart and snap a new freezeplug in. She moved it after the cold snap and didn't say anything was wrong with it other than dying because it was cold. If it cracked an iron like the horrorshow pictures on RotaryResurrection then she wouldn't have been able to start it.

I'm trying to remember, are all the freeze plugs on the rear iron, which would mean I wouldn't even have to split the irons, just pull the engine and snap a new one on (then flush the coolant and oil system?)

 

Not to mention it takes about 15 clean water flushes to get it to stop spitting bubbles from a cup of Purple Power. (Tried to do the coolant seal fix before the rebuild) I didn't notice much corrosion, but there was so much of that liquid copper crap everywhere, I couldn't see much of anything.

 

The bubbles are the result of the impeller in the water pump whipping up suds due to the air and detergents in the system. If you can keep the air out while you flush, you may get fewer bubbles and better results.

If you want an easy way to flush a radiator, you can use a Lisle spill free funnel.

http://www.thetoolwarehouse.net/shop/LIS-22150.html

Attach the thing to the radiator top, warm the car up. Then remove the radiator drain plug. Add water into the top of the funnel to keep the reservoir full. This way you do not introduce any extra air into the system and you do not have nearly the bubbles. When the drain is running clean, warm and suds free, you are probably flushed. You can easily flush out the system in one step.

I originally bought mine to hot-purge my cooling system when I changed my 1990 'Vert over to Evans NPG+. I have since found other uses, including purging air from cooling systems, flushing cooling systems etc.

Good luck.

 

Sorry, I said bubbles, I was talking about the suds. :P Those things took forever to get out.

 

last i checked this forum was for the purposes of helping people solve their problems, not for flaming them, so stop being ********

sounds like you need to make sure you test her real good before your pull the engine

 

focus on the freeze plugs in the front cover area, the freeze plugs at the back of the motor would pump water onto the ground, not into the oil pan so it can only be those core plugs or an iron. hope for the core plugs. you can even get to them without pulling the motor out of the car, just pull off the water pump, OMP, pulleys, belts and front cover.

 

maybe there was some water remaining in the waterjacket. when i freezed it couldn't expand enough and cracked a housing! i think you have a crack in one housing, 'causing the water (you are filling in) to drain to the oil compartment!... bad luck

i don't think the engine got even normal temperature during moving the car away from the garage... so that won't be the cause

 

Like I said before though, it started and ran fine AFTER the freeze/thaw, so I'm voting with Karack on a freezeplug popping, draining water into the oil area - if I cracked a housing along any surface where the rotor is, it would have made a HECK of a lot of noise when she started it up, if it started at all - plus water and oil would have probably come shooting out of it with the pressure of compression. This weekend I'll know more for sure.

 

if you think...
this is possible, but it could also have cracked somewhere around the oil pan, not stringently affecting the compression area of the housings, just spillin' the water through the crack into the oil pan... but there'll be no other alternative than take the engine apart... sorry for you...

 

It's alright - I've come to terms with it. Besides, there's some stuff I've been wanting to do that I had been putting off - I need to drop the transmission and put in the new reverse light switch, I need to replace my catalytic converter that digested itself, and install it on flanges so I won't have to drop the whole exhaust NEXT time it happens. I needed to install my new wiring harness, I have a couple of oilpan bolts that sheared off that I need to extract and replace and I wanted to have an NPT fitting put on my oilpan. While the engine's out I can take apart the whole engine bay and interior and repaint the whole car the right way. And even splitting the block isn't too bad because that Duplicolor chrome tinting stuff started looking pretty nasty pretty quick.

Even if the housing's cracked, it won't be a total loss because I can pick up some 4 port housings and use a turbo manifold instead of modifying the exhaust manifold to clear the 6 port intake. :P All in all it's not a terrible thing, but I was planning on doing this all months from now, not 2 days from now before my wife's family Christmas Party. :P

I even took all the glass off the car and took it to the tint place in the back of a pickup. I told the guy about the problem with the car and he said he could tint just the glass no problem, but it'd be best to leave it for a few days to let the tint set completely. I said no worries because the car's not going anywhere for a while. He said "Yeah, it sounds like you've got a blown headgasket" I looked at him for just a split second to see if he was joking and said "Yeah, sounds like it." Don't **** off the tint guy.

The RX7 will rise again, greater than ever before!