Hello guys,

Need some help. I had leaking o rings on the oil pedistal. Took it apart last week, but didnt get a chance to finish putting everything back together. Took the throttle body, elbow, and one spark plug wire off to make the job a little easier.

Well I got around to putting it back together today, good news is it no longer leaks oil

Bad news is I go to start it up and it runs like crap, blowing excess fuel smoke, and giving me a code 5 knock sensor. The car was running perfectly fine before I took it apart to replace the oil o rings. I sprayed some brake cleaner on where the throttle body and intake manifold meet and where the elbow meets the throttle body and didn't seem to make a difference in how it was running so I don't think it is leaking there. I also took the elbow back off and took off and reconnected the one spark plug wire i took off to do the job and that also didn't make a difference.

Seems like either some gasket is leaking or I didn't hook something back up. Any ideas?

NEVER MIND:

Figured it out, the MAF vacuum line must have came undone when I was working on it.

 

Well I drove it around and it seems to drive fine, and left the battery unplugged over night but the CEL is still there. Any ideas? The CEL comes on before you even start the car for the knock sensor, which doesn't make sense if its even knocking since it can't knock when its not running.

 

The wire for the knock sensor commonly breaks. You were in the area of the knock sensor(top of front housing above trailing plug). It is a shielded wire and is often difficult to repair without throwing the code. Your car should go into limp mode with this code but sometimes they don't. If it is back firing and cutting out as soon as you see positive pressure you are in limp mode. You should be able to find a good used one on the forum for less than $50.00.

 

You were right sir, came unplugged. Got it plugged back in and its good to go.

 

I should have mentioned too that Mazda made the wire exactly the length needed to plug in. Almost zero slack and if the harness is t positioned near perfectly it is difficult to plug in. Someone previous likely didn't get it plugged in securely and as soon as you bumped it, it lost connection. Glad you are back in the road again without issue.