Can a damage coolant seal cause smoke in engine bay?
 

All right, I know the coolant seal issue has been around so many threads that the search button will kill me.

So don't be pissed off: if you do not want to reply, well don't.

Ok here's the issue: I had smoke coming out in the turbo area. I know I already have a small oil leak there, but the other day coolant was really drooling on the floor from there.

I did not had time to jack-up the car and search for the cause, will do this week-end, so I basically just ask in order to orient my search and to get hopefull feedback that this would most probably come from the turbos or the cooling hoses around than from the internal coolant seal.

Water temp always been fine (between 85 and 90°C). Car is not swallowing water up to now, no blowing out of the overflow tank.

Thanks guys

Is smoke coming out of the exhaust? Do a coolant pressure test and see if it is a busted coolant line(there is one that goes to the turbo) or if yu do not see a leak and losing pressure then you have a bad coolant seal. Mine had a bad coolant seal and bad oil control rings and i did have smoke coming from the engine bay since all of this was coming out of the exhaust and i had a exhaust leak. Not to mention it smoked out my communtiy for like 5 min everytime i started it. Cleared up after it was warm.:icon_tup:

No smoke from the cat-back.

I'll check for a leak between DP & Turbos and turbos and block, but I'm pretty sure that if it was an internal coolant seal damage I would not see liquid from there but just steam, right?

That's why I pray for it to be just a bad coolant line to the turbos.

Also I forgot to mention that I noticed that at cold start the DP was glowing red, that was in the dark of my garage, probably would have not noticed looking at it from outside day light.

Really makes me think of a turbo cooling problem.

All right, as I'm not a so lazy bastard I did the search function.

I more and more think it is a coolant line but I also found out it could be the heater, and as a matter of fact, I have very poor heating in the cockpit...

I had a coolant seal go on me with very similar symptoms. Although mine did smoke a lot, and had trouble starting because of the coolant in the engine, but I had smoke coming from around the turbo area and also had coolant leaking onto the ground. I replaced all of the cooling lines in that area and it still didn't fix anything unfortunately. I don't know for sure if I had another issue causing any of the problems but I do know I had a bad coolant seal.

coolant on the ground from a bad coolant seal, thats a little excessive isnt it?
my understanding of a bad coolant seal has all the leakage occuring internally and shows symptoms out the exhaust or in the over flow resevoir????

its probably a turbo coolant hose, have u ever changed yours, there are 2 running from the waterpump housing to the turbo, why dont u start there, they are usual suspects. if u cant see anything visibly wrong with the coolant hoses put a pressure tester on the system. Why waste all this time speculating and posting, go find out what it is and save yourself unecessary stress.

^What he said. Probably the 2 turbo coolant hoses. Go rent a coolant system pressure tester and use it to locate the leaks.

You can search for other threads on the turbo coolant hoses and also check the Factory Service Manual for location and what they look like.

When I was having my issues many people said it could be fluid being pushed out of various areas from the increased pressure on the cooling system. It probably is a leak elsewhere, but I had very similar symptoms (albeit worse) and mine ended up being a coolant seal, I had replaced all the other lines so I know they weren't leaking.

Check your heater core connections. Bypass it and see if the leak goes away. The smoke might be an oil/coolant leak in your turbo's

thewird

Some news:

Saturday I lift-up the car to try to spot the leakage precisely. As I could not see well in the darkness of my underground garage, I decide to start the car.

Car started at very low idle and died. Impossible to restart and in the end it finally drawned under gas!

Yesterday I had more time to take care of it.

I disassembled the intake, IC, cross-over tube and air-pump so I can access and view the cooling lines from the WP to the turbos.

I pressed the uper radiator hose and spotted the leakage immediately: uper coolant line from WP to turbo. The leakage was at the clamp at the turbo.

The hose was loose and inflated. I replace it with a silicone one.

Re-assembled everything and tried to restart the car: impossible, drawned it again more...

I called a frind who knows very well these engines.

Now, it can be one or the other: I mean in the best case it was just the hose. In the worst case, the hose was just the weak point of an overpressurized cooling system due to a broken water seal.

What would astonish me is that I had really no previous clue of the seal damage as I mentioned in the earlier posts.

I wouldn't worry so much if the car hadn't died when I started it on saturday...

Just hope that it was due to an ECU code.

Next step: reset the ECU, remove spark plugs and see what shit comes out of that engine, hopping for it to be just petrol!

By the way, can someone help me identify the fuse to remove to have the engine run w/o injection to dry the engine?

And please pray with me.

https://www.rx7club.com/showpost.php...92&postcount=5

Make sure your battery is charged. You'd be surprised how quickly you can run it down by trying to crank the car.

News: de-flooded the engine, broke 1 spark plug, replaced with 1 new.

The spark plugs were really black and wet (with gas) no trace of coolant. Cleaned them with Amsoil and petrol the best I could, but they didn't come like new...

While drying the engine I noticed presence of compressions just by hearing & puting my hand near the plug holes.
While plugs were away I aslo cleaned the engine with some Amsoil Powerfoam and let it like this overnight.

Next day: instant restart, car is pushing like before, no apparent coolant loss.

BUT: low iddle at max 800 sometimes lower and bumping (slightly) at regular period. You can see the little bumps at niddle and hear them from the exhaust and from the engine bay.

- Ignition issue due to 3 bad sparkplugs and 1 new?
- Timing issue? The fact that may be my belt is not tighten well when I re-installed air-pump (which I didn't electrically plugged-in by the way, one connector being stucked under the cross over tube when I reinstalled...) But my TT show 13.9-14 volt.
- Compression loss on one rotor face? shit why?

I'll start another thread to have your guys opinion about how mys engine sounds now...

Sounds like a blown rotor seal to me but wtf the link with the fact I had a bad turbo coolant hose or that I flooded th engine :wallbash:

Just an addition of different problems, or I'm just too pessimistic...

New engine sound: https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generation-specific-1993-2002-16/how-does-engine-sound-796195/

Go for a run after you plug the air pump back in and see if it cleans up. Otherwise compression test all faces.

thewird