Help! last night as i was drivign my car, i turned the car off and then back on and then the add coolant light came on. When I opened up the cap for the water pump, there was no coolant in it, I have no coolant leaks or anything so I don't know where the coolant is going or what's going on. This has only happened to me 2 other times before. One time was when i overheated the car, the other time the exact same thing happened 6 months ago but my mechanic said the coolant was escaping out of the AST cap or something like that. Since then I changed my coolant and then it was fine until last night. CAn someone with experience help me? This is a mazda rebuilt motor with barely 30000 miles on it. I know that if I have broken water seals then the coolant will go in the engine and then I will need another rebuild, but is there any way i can tell?

 

BE CAREFUL!!!!!!!!!

the same thing was happening to me.... well yeah, two days ago my temp gauge started to rise above midway in traffic right after i started driving it. If I didn't pull of the road and turn my car off it would have blown my engine!!!! Now its on the side of the road and I cant get it back because my Radiator hose is split or has a gash in it. Any coolant I pour in comes right back out onto the ground. So if I were you check your the radiator hose comming out of the bottom of your filler neck. You might need to remove your airbox to see it all.

Maybe you have a leak somewhere else.... but check everything you can.

Chris

 

i would have a pressure check done on your cooling system to determine leaks. Hopefully you haven't blown you seals in the engine yet.

 

if you cant do a presure test, fill it up w/ coolant and drive it for a little while. even if light/buzzer come on, just turn around and drive home. let it cool off and even when you get home check in the overflow tank. is it full? check again when cool (coolant, not overflow) fill it up until you can see it, but not all the way to the top. start the car and watch what happens to the level. does it rise or contract. if it rises, then most likely you have bad coolant seals. the presure of the combustion in your motor at idel is causing the leak in the motor to "force " the coolant out. when you drive it is sucking it in also along w/ blowing it out at idle. i cant explain it very well, but ihope you get the idea.

 

Go to O'Reilly's or AutoZone and pick up a STANT #233 cap.
I had a similar problem, and noticed that on the stock fill cap there was a small piece of the seal damaged, evidently it was enough to let steam pass thru or something, 'cuz ever since I replaced it, I have not had a drop of coolant lost.

 

the key words were "one time when i overheated the car" did you put the thermostat in yet??

mike

 

ok guys i found out what it was. apparently dirt was building in my pressure cap in my AST which was screwing with the presure cap and causing the coolant to go to my overfill tank and pour out. All i had to do was clean it and now it's all good. Amazing how a simple thing caused so much problems

 

ive seen that with a couple of cars

mike

 

That is the wierdest **** I ever heard of. As I was reading down the posts I was expecting the worst, and then it turned out to be nothing at all.

 

yeah, i thought it would be something like my water seals going out and me needing a new motor, but when i brought it to ivan, he told me that it was just the dirt under my AST, hey it's a third gen rx7, what do you expect?