.......when they built the motor from the factory??? If I tore down my motor and it had the grey RTV on the pan and no gasket at all, does that mean that my motor had been rebuilt once before???

 

Somebody pulled the pan and redid it.

James

 

Not neccessarily rebuilt, maybe just for something else like a leak or something. It's common to use RTV instead of a gasket for the oil pan.

 

What do you think would be a for sure sign of a prior rebuild???

 

Clearances of apex seals or other hard seals, like if they're almost brand new they'll be very well within spec. Or very little carbon buildup on the rotors, not like caked on. If it's ported then it's probably been rebuilt, or say if you're NA and the diffusers are gone or you're using TII sleeves, stuff like that.

 

no none of that. The diffusers are still in there and the oil rings were dry and cracked One was cracked in two places.

 

I doubt it was then. You can always check the clearances on the old apex seals too if you want, but it still might be hard to tell.

 

The old apex seals were almost the same size as the new ones

 

Did you check with a digital caliper or something similar or are you just eyeing it?

 

Mazda motors come stock with no gasket...even remans. They use a white/gray rtv substance, and the remans have WAY too much of it applied most of the time. Your motor was stock.

 

^ well there ya go. Kevin, Why are you still up?? Its 1:00am your time.

I did use the digital calipers ($15 on sale at Harbor Freight) I was trying to determine if I could reuse the old apex seals in a moment of Tightasseness. I soon came to my senses.

 

****, I work nights man. I just buttoned up a block about 30 minutes ago, and stopped work for the day. You can't get jack **** done during the daytime, for running errands, fooling with the phone, visitors, etc. So I usually actually start working around 5-6pm, and do so until midnight or thereabouts. Then I fool around on the forums and stuff for a few hours, and go to bed.

I would consider reusing any other part of the engine except apex seals, unless I can determine they have <25k miles on them. I wouldnt use any that mic'd less than 0.310" under any circumstances...and only then when reinstalling them in the same relationship to the same housings they were riding on to begin with. Since all wear patterns are unique, putting seals from one housing into another, or even mixing them up within the same motor, will result in compression loss, and make for a long *** breakin and an overall shitty motor.

Just say no to reused apex seals.

 

Classic

Now you've made my day sir

 

I heard that...(mixing the seals from one rotor to another)..I think on the Turrington video. But by the time I heard it I had all the seals in one pile and had been using one to scrape carbon out of the groves. (The apex seal was the single most used tool while doing the short block)

Like I said when I saw the price of new ones I got titas real bad.