If any of you remember my post from a while back, I was having my coolant go down pretty quick. I decided yesterday to let teh car idle for a bit, and after about 15 minutes I was getting about a drop a second of coolant coming from the location in the pics. Easily enough to account for the coolant loss I experience. It seems that the hotter it gets the more coolant comes out, until I get on the boost and heat the turbos up. When I end up getting on the boost, I don't find any coolant on the ground after stopping the car (even when left alone for a while). I assume the coolant is burning off before it can hit the ground. This would also account for the light smoke I occasionally see coming from the hood when I stop for a stop light.

Anyway, I don't have any jack stands here, and my ramps are in storage (helping my parents move their stuff, and my stuff gets caught up ), so can anyone take a good guess from the pics as to what it is?

I'm praying its the turbo coolant line.




Closeup


-Dave

*edit: No sweet smell at all from the exhaust, and I have never seen any smoke from there.

 

take the undertray off and check the lower radiator hose and the radiator end tanks. My boy had a leak right there, and it was from the radiator hose. MAKE sure u run the car when u check too so the pressure builds up as leaks might only be present under pressure

 

Really? That seems mighty far back for the radiator hose. I guess I'll just break down and buy some more jack stands. Whee!

Thanks for the suggestion.

Any more?

Just went back outside and that spot is about 6 times that size now

 

ah, thats what I thought too. Too far back. But coolant is a weird liquid, and follows anything it touches. So it had leaked all the way back there by falling onto a few other areas, travelling down some reinforcment stuff, onto the undertray, and on the ground.

 

Yep, coolant will travel far from the source just to **** you off!

Daedel, you should know that coolant leaks at the turbos like you seem to be experiencing have led to engine fires, enough to make Mazda perform a recall on the issue. Stop driving it, and REALLY quit heating up the turbos under boost. The coolant forms a greenish sludge as it cooks, which WILL burn. When/if you end up replacing the turbo coolant lines, note that the upper is able to leak back along the hard metal pipe that connects to the turbo (under the Y-pipe area). This is the place where it collects then catches on fire. If you've had a leak from the upper coolant hose, PULL the Y-pipe. It's not hard, and you can clean that hard line underneath it fully.

I mean it.

 

Hehe, I have pretty much stopped driving it Got my jack stands at Sears and tomorrow morning it goes up. I'll follow your advice.

 

could be the heater hose, same exact thing happened to me today.

 

Welp, I idled it until the fans came on (took off the undertray first) then got underneath.





First pic is kinda blury, but is that the turbo coolant line? It has that green goop near the bottom, and also where it attaches to the turbo itself. You can also see some on the bolt next to the line in the second picture. I used a different mode so that pic came out much better.

Also notice the beautiful oil all over the place. Yay!

So.... likely candidate?

 

Well, that's actually the oil return line in the upper pic. The coolant line is in between the two turbos, and is hidden by the turbo control actuator and heat shield. Anyway, all that green goo is coolant, like I said above. The best way to really get at all this is to remove the air pump (and intake as well of course!).

so get new hoses and stuff

Here's the upper hose

 

and the lower hose

 

With the pump off how hard is it to get to both?

 

Not easy, but it's really the only way. I will tell you a little secret to getting those hoses off: Use a 10 mm open end wrench, place it (the open end, that is) over the metal tube that you want to take the rubber off of, and push the wrench to get the hose off. Does that make sense? Works great for fuel hoses too...

Anywho, drain your coolant, use a long nosed vise grip and or channel lock to get those stock hose clamps off, then use the wrench to push off the hose. Replace with stock hoses. The stock clamps will work ok, though I found some very nice clamps through McMaster Carr that seem to work very well as well. I don't recommend worm screw clamps for this area, they expand too much and start to leak!!

Last, do your damnedest to remove all green goo from turbo related components. I would highly recommend pulling the Y-pipe to get at the upper coolant hard line and cleaning it off. Just my $0.02

 

While you got it apart, look at the condition of all the hoses. If money and downtime are not a problem, go ahead and change them all out or at least the two turbo hoses and two heater hoses on the right side firewall above the downpipe.

Jack

 

Thanks a ton guys. I'm going to start dissasembly tomorrow. I'm just glad the coolant O-ring isn't going.

 

One turbo coolant line looked like it had an aneurism, and the other was brittle as the F and had some cracks I could see. Both also had that styrofoam crap crack off. I also decided to take off the Y-pipe and the secondary's intake gasket had welded itself to the intake piping. I'm glad I got in there.

I'm replacing all of the gaskets in that area, and all of the coolant lines I can see, including the main coolant hoses, and the belts. Good stuff.

It was all a lot easier than I thought it would be (mostly due to Rob Robinette, hehe). Thanks again for all of your suggestions guys.

Oh, and for all of you complaining about the fuel filter... what are you talking about? lol, just kidding. 'Twas a bitch, but I did it on my own.

 

Good deal. You gonna be in TX all summer.

We should be having a New Orleans Rx-7 Club meet soon since our leader's, Ted, engine is on its way back. We got Petros' No. 2 motor from Pineapple started yesterday and no more smoke plumes but vacuum is kinda low - need to put some miles on and see.

Jack

 

Just tell me when and I'll find my way back.

 

Yez we will ! Can't wait to start up a Real engine. It'll e the first time in 4 yrs.........BTW.......did I say **** Hayes Rotary !

 

That bad?

 

Maybe you missed this https://www.rx7club.com/forum/showth...hreadid=201584

 

Yep, I was camping that day. All I have to say is WTF?