I'm driving along, stop and go traffic.
*BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*
Coolant light comes on.
First thing I do, shut the engine off.
Then I turn on my A/C to have the fans run high.
I turn the temp dial to HOT also.
I look at the stock temp guage and its almost at the top white notch (not quite).

So, I sit for awhile and wait for the temp to come down.
Luckily, I keep an extra bottle of coolant and an extra bottle of water in my trunk.
I fill her up, check for leaks, found none, so off I went.
Drove home slowly and cautiously.

Next day, I drove out to get a new pressure cap.
On my way to the dealership, same thing happens.
(Yeah, stupid me, shouldn't have driven.)

The car drives fine now, no white smoke or anything.
Just that when it happened the second time, the car didn't fire up right away. Took a couple of cranks.

I know that when the stock temp guage moves, the engine is HOT HOT HOT!!
Now my concern is if it did any damage to my motor or the seals.
The car runs fine now. I replaced the pressure cap and hopefully that will fix my coolant problem.

I hope my motor is fine though.
Can anyone tell me how I can check if its okay or not?
And whats the worse that it can be damaged if its running fine now?

 

The question is...Where is the coolant going? If you have to keep adding coolant the coolant is either A. leaking, or B. Burning up in the motor. My old motor did the same thing just before it went. I hate to tell you this, but your motor is on the edge of death. I would get a compression check just be sure. But, something you can try is this: When your motor is stone cold, like tomorrow when you wake up, take off the coolant cap(the main one above the water pump) and start the motor. If you see little bubbles, like in a soda, then the seals are history. Also, is you car stock? Have you done the plastic AST removal, or replacement?

 

To quote Freddy Mercury (I Think...) who is also dead:

"And another one bites, another one bites, another one bites the dust."

My advice:

Call rotary "expert", get out checkbook, get rebuild, blow reman in 12,000 miles, call rotary "expert", get out checkbook again.

Sorry to be so cruel, but you REALLY should not have driven it the second time.

 

This is the alarming part.

 

Well, it wasn't like it wouldn't start up right away.
Just took a little longer on the crank for it to catch.
Like on a very cold start in the morning after a very cold night.

The coolant is leaking out from the overflow.
I've talked to Ivan and he says that it seems like a pressure cap failure.

I don't get white smoke nor do I get bubbles in the coolant.

I'm hoping for the best...

 

Car is all stock.
Still have the OEM AST.
I'm planning on getting the Pettit AST.

 

Why in the world did you drive it a 2nd time? Don't worry, people always jump to "blown engine" comment.
Get a compression check.

 

Yeah, I know I know.
No good excuse to drive it.
I just figured it was okay since I drive it home (cautiously) after that incident and the dealership wasn't too far away from my house.
Oh well, bad idea.
But whats done is done.
Live and learn.
Just wanna make sure my car is okay now...

 

I don't think I'm jumping to the blown engine comment, but:

1. overheated
2. hard to start
3. overflow blowing coolant

 

Compression check, this is the tell all number!

 

Compression tells you nothing if you have a bad o-ring. It is only good for Apex, side and corner seals. You need to have the coolant system pressure tested.

 

In no way am I being a smart *** but wouldn't compression be leaked if coolant was able to get into the combustion chamber. If coolant can get in combustion can be leaked? Just thought it was like that.

 

Yeah, I was thinking that too...
But, GOOD NEWS FOR ME!!

1. - can't really do anything about that now...
2. - it starts up just fine now
3. - car hasnt leaked a drop of coolant since i replaced the pressure cap.

So... Hopefully all is good...

 

I hope that does it. Good luck.