new owner of stock 1993 RX 7 touring. upon starting, add coolant light comes on although coolant level is full. Also, temperature gauge rapidly moves from very high to low during normal driving / idoling / whenever. Additionally, oil pressure will register 0 and then jump to a normal reading for no apparent reason. Car sounds and drives great.

Second problem: unknown oil leak from motor - - any common areas I should start to look? thanks for the help.

 

First off, make sure you are checking the level at the right place:



Check the coolant level here when the car is cool. If the coolant/water is not up to the top, then you are low on coolant and need to tap it off.

The oil pressure senders are located under the oil filter neck. They are known to get dirty and have a hard time getting proper readings. You can try to clean off the contacts but its possible you'll need to replace the sender. Again, it's common with these cars.

Lastly, the oil leak. There are many places that can leak oil. You'll need to narrow it down as in what part of the engine is the oil dripping from. If its a fairly good amount, put the car on jack stands and run it. You should be able to see where it's dripping from....

 

just a quick one:

does anyone have a picture of the oil pressure senders? i'd like to clean mine ones as i don't think i get proper readings...

 

When I talked to Rotary Performance about oil pressure issues they told me this. They have never seen a Rotary Motor have a real oil pressure issue that wasn't related to some sort of catastrophic motor failure. So basically, if you ever have a real oil pressure issue, then chances are you'll notice a different problem before that and you'll most likely have engine failure before the pressure is any worry. Thats why I never bothered to replace any oil pressure monitoring systems on my car. My gauge goes crazy sometimes its stuck at 0 and sometimes its stuck up at 120+. I just trust the Rotary gods to keep her going.

 

I happened to have a few. I'm at the office without photoshop so I can't circle it, or resize it, for you. This is a shot when I still had the Greddy relocation kit on the car. The sending unit is the real dirty piece that is screwed into the oil filter pedestal. There is no oil filter in the picture but those braided SS lines go down to the oil filter pedestal. Hope this helps.

 

thank you i'll have a look first thing in the morning

 

I should mention that the photo is taken from relatively low in the engine bay looking back towards the firewall. You can see the yellow handle of the oil dipstick on the left to give you an idea. It is amazing the number of photo's I have of obscure parts of the car through my asking "what is this" questions over the last 5 months.

 

thx i think i know where it is now

btw:
do i need to take it out to for cleaning? or is it ok if i just clean the thing around? if i need to take it out how do i do that? do i need to be careful with something?

cheers

 

Here's the page from the FSM. You'll see the pedestal for the oil filter and the big round thing below it is the oil pressure sending unit:

 

cheers guys, gotta check it out over the weekend