Alright, so I have a few questions. In the process of changing out some of my grounds I put all four corners on jackstands to see if I could find some of the grounding points. In the process of looking around under my car, there are a few things that I am worried about, or am unfamiliar with. Since I bought it modded, I'm not familiar with what a few of these things should be. First to the possible problems:

When looking at my driver side motor mount from above I noticed some time ago what looked like a layer of oil/grime (when I say grime from now on, I'm talking about what looks like dirt and what not picked up and stuck to the area with the oil) on it ( http://www.9kaccessories.com/images/...ormounttop.jpg ), as well as in the surrounding area. So while under the car, I have noticed it even more. The following three show that.

1. This is a wide angle pic of the tranny skid plate/subframe. You can see a little bit of grime from here. http://www.9kaccessories.com/images/...ameoilwide.jpg

2. This is a close up of the tranny skid plate/subframe, same position as the previous one, and the motor mount bolt is there to the left. http://www.9kaccessories.com/images/...frameclose.jpg

3. This one is from between the tranny and the skid plate, looking forward to the engine. I believe the motor mount is just to the left out of sight. Notice its a nice layer of grime and oil. http://www.9kaccessories.com/images/...idplatetop.jpg

The next pics are of the oil pan. These aren't great, since it got a bit cramped trying to take pictures with a foot and a half of space between the floor and the car.

1. Here you can see the passenger side of the oil pan. The white part is whatever they used to seal it (it's completely covering the bolts and what not as well, and seems pretty liberally applied). You'll notice the top part, which is towards the front of the car, is whiter, thats because as you go further back, it has more and more oil/grime on it. http://www.9kaccessories.com/images/...ilpanclear.jpg

2. This is the driver side of the oil pan. Left is to the rear, right towards the front. You can see there's an even more generous amount of sealant (or whatever you call it) in one place. This is actually from the round of second pictures. I had wiped off some of the grime from the subframe and the sealant. http://www.9kaccessories.com/images/...oilpanseal.jpg

3. Same thing as above, before I had wiped the grime off, and from the opposite angle. You might notice there's actually a drop of oil at the lowest point of the glob of sealant. I felt the top of the subframe where the drop would fall, and there is no larger amount of oil there, so if there is a leak, its very slow. Also, there has never been any oil leaking on the ground from my car. Ever. http://www.9kaccessories.com/images/...ilpanseal2.jpg

There's also a lot of grime to the rear of the oil pan on some of the brackets or metal pieces above the subframe's crossmember. I have a pic, but it's hard to tell. Again, the car has never leaked oil noticeable on the ground. It does seem to burn a bit more oil than it should.

Next is some random things I noticed while under there:

1. Steering linkage. This is coming from the steering wheel to the actual linkage that goes to the wheels. As you'll notice, there's at least a small hole in a portion of the boot. Does the location of this hole pose a problem, and if so, how critical of a problem, and what needs to be done to correct it? http://www.9kaccessories.com/images/...inglinkage.jpg

2. Connector near oil pan. You can see this in a few of the other pics. Its not the one that goes into the oil pan, but that runs to the back of it and goes elsewhere. I noticed it looked like the connecter has a spot for a second wire coming out, but there's not there. Anyone know if its supposed to have one or two? http://www.9kaccessories.com/images/.../connector.jpg

3. This is a pipe coming above the turbos to near the downpipe/exhaust flange. Did this originally go to the cat for the airpump? The airpump has been removed, so is the pipe ok like this? If not, wth is it? http://www.9kaccessories.com/images/...blems/pipe.jpg

4. This is the driverside of the DP. Up is to the front of the car, down is to the rear. It looks like there is a bracket on the DP that was bolted to something, and that something was broken off. What is this? http://www.9kaccessories.com/images/.../dpbracket.jpg

That's it for the pics. Any input as to what might be wrong would be appreciated.

One last quick question, has anyone ever seen the single wire coming out of the stock O2 sensor break off completely? I noticed when I was changing mine out (thought it might be bad) that bare wire going into it was exposed, and there were only a couple of strands still connected. By the time I got it out using the O2 sensor socket, it completely broke off. Is this something that might happen over time, or something that would have to be caused by other forces?

Blake

 

No one?

 

That's a ton of questions!

First off, it does look like you've got an oil pan leak. Looks like someone tried to seal it up and didn't get the job done well . The sealant on top of the bolts isn't doing anything - that's a pretty vain attempt. You'll likely have to tackle the oil pan job yourself - it's a royal chore to do right, but that's what it will take to clean all that up. Do some searching and researching for advice from others on the job.

The 1-wire sensor coming from the oil pan - this is all good. It's the oil level sensor, Mazda just used a 2-wire plug for no particular reason.

Steering boot - the hole is normal. The boot is really just to keep rocks and small children off the steering column. Really to keep wires and stuff from getting caught up and damaged by the turning column.

That pipe is probably the oil split air pipe that fed air to the main cat. No cat or airpump, it has no purpose - you can remove it. If it leaves a hole behind, that's fine - it's just dead space without the airpump.

The O2 sensor - that's not typically something that happens, it's usually from people removing the downpipe and forgetting to unplug it, hitting it against something, you name it. Change that sucker out soon - you'll end up with a BIG MPG improvement and much better driveability.

Dale

 

Thanks for responding...

Seeing as how there's never been any oil leaking on the ground, I assume the oil pan leak is not an emergency issue as long as I keep the oil level checked. Hopefully this is true, because once I get it running well (purpose of doing the grounds), I'm sellin' her...

I already replaced the O2 with a Bosch unit. That seemed to help a little, still not 100% confident though, so I'm doing the grounds.

I thought I read on here that when replacing the oil pan, you should just use the gasket and no sealant?

Blake

 

Actually, people recommend using a sealant like RTV Black Silicone instead of a gasket. The gasket doesn't seal very well unless you can do a phenom job on torqueing the pan and also making sure the pan is perfectly straight, it's not tweaked.