RX7Club.com - Mazda RX7 Forum - Coolant never full, the overflow is overflowing.

Quote:

Originally posted by aReX-7

You say that it will only seal things where air is present, but I hope you do realize that there is small amounts of air often trapped in your cooling system for the first few days after you change your coolant. Especially in the radiator. I usually have to add alittle coolant for the first three or four times I drive after I change.

Case in point:

I recently worked on a 93' FD for a local guy who was experiencing a boil over effect after shut down. He kept adding coolant, and adding coolant, but it just seemed to keep boiling into the overflow tank. After replacing the AST cap, I took apart his cooling system and I found it to be full of flakey, scaley copper crap. The coolant line leading to the turbos was about 60% plugged, and the line to the throttle body was COMPLETELY blocked. No flow. Also, his radiator was partially packed full of the crap too, and there is just no way to get all of that stuff out of there. Later he told me that the previous owner had overheated the original engine and tried to use a stop leak product to "squeeze out a few more miles". What they actually did was doom the new engine beacuse the already overworked cooling system had now lost about hallf of it's cooling capacity. I am pretty sure he will be putting engine #3 in that car very shortly.

Back to you:

At this point, you can't take back the fact that you used this stuff. What is done is done. However, I would pay extra close attention to the coolant temps in the near future. Especially in stop and go traffic. And the stock gauge will not do. It will only start to move above normal ASFTER the car starts to overheat. Get an aftermarket gauge installed. If it starts to run over 100 deg. C, I would start shopping for a new radiator and replace ALL of the coolant lines. Maybe even the heater core if necessary. Also, remember that you should flush the system in the reverse direction that it flows in the cooling loop. That is your only hope to get some of that stuff out of there.

Good luck.

Jeff

Thanks for the advice... your correct I can not do much about it now. I think I'll pull the TB line, ast/neck lines and turbo lines (all decently easy to get to) and check them just in case tho. I have a Defi water gauge in the car and I'm running about 180-190 F when it's over 100 F out side here in AZ w/ the fans off. I seem to be running quite cool compared to some of the other FDs out here in AZ. I have a PFC also and checking it against that my defi gauge is right on the money.

Thanks for the advice and I'll keep an eye out.