The Rotary Gods have smiled on me
#1
Look Ma! No Pistons.
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The Rotary Gods have smiled on me
I'm so happy I finally caught a break on my FD! I've been battling a coolant dump problem and had another thread going about possibly having a coolant seal leak. After performing the famous champagne bubble test I was convinced my engine was toast and that I was going to have to spring for an expensive rebuild job. I'd considered everything from a block weld treatment to an engine conversion. Ultimately I was going to veryify the coolant seal leak with an exhaust sniffer over the open radiator fill cap but decided to first just buy a new fill cap from Mazda. I got the cap today ($24, ouch, for a cap?) Tried it out and unlike the cheap cap I got from the auto parts store wks ago when I first started having the problem, this thing actually worked. Now the coolant is being sucked back into the radiator from the overflow tank which it was not doing before; yehaaaaah!
Listen if any of you out there ever have this problem, save yourself some time. Don't just get any ol' pos cap from the stupid auto parts shop. Get the *Mazda* cap! It's different. Also even if your old Mazda cap looks ok like mine did. The rubber in the cap doesn't have to be torn or even look very worn to be bad. What seems to happen is that after a certain amount of time the rubber ring inside gets an indented ring sort of etched into it. This causes it to not be able to make a proper seal and it will give you the coolant dumping symptoms I had.
As for the "champagne bubble test", bubbles are not a good indicator of a coolant seal leak. Could just be small air pockets. The only definitive test is the exhaust sniffer to determine the presence of exhaust gases in the coolant. I never got this far but if it gives me any more trouble that will be the first test I give it. Just take it to any smog station where they can hold the probe over the fill neck with the motor running. If the machine detects exhaust, then in that case the Rotary Gods have *not* smiled on you that day
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Thanks for the support!
Yeah what's that line? "Back in the saddle again!" Can't wait to take her out for a drive today!
Last edited by Silverstone; 06-21-06 at 02:22 PM.
#7
Cheap Bastard
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Too bad you didn't get any good advice from your last thread ................. oh wait!!
Originally Posted by adam c
Don't jump to conclusions about an o-ring failure. The first thing to do is make sure that you get all of the air out of the cooling system. If your ast cap was bad, you may have residual air still in there...........
Originally Posted by adam c
Did I mention that you need to clear the air from your system before making any judgements.
Originally Posted by adam c
..........Sounds like you have not tried to remove all of the air from the system as I advised earlier.
Originally Posted by adam c
Sorry I tried to help. I guess that the difficulty of my suggestion was just too much for you to try. Good luck with your rebuild.
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#9
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Come on Adam, now i said I appreciated your advice in that last thread. I noticed you left that part out of your quoting. The fact is that is was the cap on the filler neck, not the cap on the AST. The air pockets were not causing the problem. You see when the cap leaks the vaccuum pressure as it cools is not enough to suck the coolant back into the radiator from the white plastic overflow tank. The result is that you keep flowing more and more coolant into the overflow tank until it spills out and none goes back into the main cooling system so you have to keep topping it off. Anyway problem solved and I hope this thread helps others. I went down a bunch of wrong turns before I finally started going back and retrying the cap thing with a genuine Mazda part. Don't be a Debbie Downer.
#10
Yea, I'm working on it...
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hmmm, my buddy is loosing alot of coolant, I didn't even think about this. *picks up phone and dials buddy*
Thanks man! And congrats on not having to rebuild the motor!
Thanks man! And congrats on not having to rebuild the motor!
#11
Cheap Bastard
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Originally Posted by Silverstone
Come on Adam ..........I went down a bunch of wrong turns before I finally started going back and retrying the cap thing with a genuine Mazda part.
Originally Posted by Silverstone
....... Don't be a Debbie Downer.
#12
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Originally Posted by adam c
I hope there is a lesson for everyone there. Don't buy **** parts for your nice car.
>>Don't be a Debbie Downer<<
OMG!!!!! ..............
>>Don't be a Debbie Downer<<
OMG!!!!! ..............
#13
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Originally Posted by adam c
I hope there is a lesson for everyone there. Don't buy **** parts for your nice car.
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