Right this is the story:

Bought an FD with a blown engine, the engine was scrap so got one from the breakers yard.

Put it in yesterday and today and tried to get it started and it wont go. I'm getting fuel and ignition as I have tested them, I took the leading plug out and tried to start it and I get flames comming out of the plug hole when cranking it over (so the other trailing plug is firing no problem).

When cranking I'm getting the sucking noise from the inlet and the exhaust is making the pumping noise if you know what I mean..

So I thought I'd get the compression tester out, the tester is one for piston engines so not ideal. But when turning it over I get no compression from the back housing at all (havn't tried the front yet), the needle doesn't even flicker a tiny bit. Now OK I could have bought a dodgy engine but if the seals had gone I would get some compression, even if it was just 1bar. The engine turns over fine and fast.

What to try next??? ATF in the housings to see if I can get some compression?? Could it be carbon build up on the seals???

 

try ATF, nothing to lose... have you run the deflood procedure?
pull the leading plugs and EGI fuse, crank it for 15 seconds x3... put everything back in and try again. no compression off each rotor face on the rear housing... not good. the rear housing in general is the one that dies first.

 

When I first put the engine in I forgot to connect the coils up so I had no ignition and I was trying to crank it so yea I think it is flooded. Havn't tried the deflood pro yet but will in the morning.

Just seems funny that there is ZERO compression, but I was using the leading plug hole!!! Does it matter???

Whats the procedure for using ATF as I'm not sure

 

put some ATF ino the leading plug hole... only a few drops... think it is possible to put it down one of the small vacuum hoses off the manifold too... do that while you run the deflood procedure and it should free up the seals (if they are still hanging in there) - really, you should have done at least a visual inspection of the seals before putting it in BUT, hindsight is 20/20.

 

I'm thinking the seals could be stuck, the breakers yard said they had the car started before they took the engine out but I taking their word for that.

I'll blow some compressed air into the chambers aswell to dry them out then try the ATF

 

no point blowing air into the chambers... just ATF and go for it.
when you get it started, that ATF is going to make it pour white smoke for at least a few minutes, don't worry about that unless it keeps going and you lose coolant.

 

cheers weetbix i'll give it a go.

 

Right managed to get it away today for a couple of minutes, tried to get it to idle but it died, couldn't get it started again. Done the ATF trick with the clouds of smoke comming out the back and when trying to get it away again it puffs and splutters with the smoke comming out the exhaust but just doesn't get going. Might be the battery dieing abit as I have been messing around for a couple of hours so thats on charge now.

When I did get it started it seemed to rev OK considering it was full of ATF.

Am I still in hope??

 

bump

 

Just had it started and I have zero compression on the back rotor but the engine ran on the front rotor. The rear water seal must be leaking bad as the coolent system emptied itself into it as it was running and I had white smoke comming from the exhaust and no coolent left so it must have went into the rotor.

On the compression tester it never showed 1 psi on the back housing, but I could feel compression with my finger on the front rotor (couldn't get the tester in).

Rebuild time.