So I just got my fc yesterday and all I had time to do on it was a little house keeping. The thing had been setting in a storage building for quite a while. Anyway I was just poking around in it and found some old paperwork on the car. One thing I found was an invoice that said

"Diagnose engine overheating
Symptom: Engine is overheating (steam, losing coolant, pressure relief at radiator cap or recovery system)
DIAGNOSE BAD HEAD GASKET

Now I am new to rotary but even I know there is no head gasket on a re. So as a new person what should I make of this paperwork? The guy I bought it from said that he was told it had a bad apex seal, but if that is the problem then there wouldn't be coolant problems at least not from what I know. Anything will help. Thank you.

 

Blown coolant seals on a rotary are the equivalent of a blown head gasket on a piston engine. The apex seals have nothing to do with the cooling system. Have you run the car yet? If the coolant seals are blown, the coolant temperature gauge will quickly pass the half-way mark (on an S4) even sitting at idle. You will also find coolant boiling out into the overflow tank.

 

I haven't run it yet. The guy I bought it from had started to remove the engine to do a rebuild and stopped when he decided to put a v8 in it. Well he never got around to doing it, or to putting the thing back together. So I got it with the radiator, alternator, and intake components all setting in the back of the car.

 

So it's your intention to rebuild the engine? If the water seals are blown on one of the chambers, you'll be looking at a rusted out and ruined rotor & rotor housing. If both housings had coolant leaking into them, then both rotors and both housings (at least) will be junk.

You're not going to know what you have until you pull the engine apart. If it's been sitting in storage for some time, it doesn't sound like a good start.

 

You could hook up the cooling system and pressurize it. As long as the caps test good, a loss of pressure without a visible leak is a strong sign of a bad coolant seal. If it holds pressure for a long time, your coolant seals are probably good.

 

Well I was planning on rebuilding it, but if I'm looking at 1 or even 2 bad housing and rotors then would it just be cheaper to swap it? (The car has been setting more or less since at least 02.) I am also not sure how long the previous owner had it apart. It could have been the week he got that diagnoses or it could have been 5 years later.

I think putting the coolant system back together and running the pressure tests sounds like a good place to start.

None of this is what I was hoping for. The seller told me a bad apex seal, not anything about bad coolant seals I just happened to find a shop ticket in the car with that as the notes.

I really appreciate the help guys, thanks.

 

Wouldn't "BAD HEAD GASKET" constitute a refund? Even though you didn't pay for it, I would still try. Hell, it might even be worth a laugh.

 

A refund is kinda out of the question on this one. I saved the car from the scrap yard. And scrap price is about all I paid for it. I'm not trying to complain on the guy or the deal it just would have been nice to have the proper information so I knew what I was looking at. But no big deal the main reason I bought the car was to work on a rotary engine and I guess that is exactly what I got a project car. Ha Ha. I just wanted to bring the thing back from the dead sooner rather than later and I can already seen the dollar signs adding up and that means more time to get the money.

 

lol, dollar signs... I started my "fix it up and drive it around" project 5 years ago on my FB. My best advice is to research, research, and then research more. THEN, figure out a game plan of the end result you want. This will save you from buying parts, changing your mind, and then buying more parts spending more money than needed. Most of the time you cant get out what you have in those parts, even if they arent used.

 

I'd go talk to the company just to ask "WTF!?"

 

The research thing I am doing and will continue to do. As long as it takes me to save up the money. Ha ha. Oh well I will know for sure what I want by the time I can afford it. I already have a pretty good idea of what I expect out of the car. I bought it to teach myself rotary engines and I think it will do quite a good job of that. Aside from that for what I got the thing for all the rest is bonus. It is in great shape for the deal I got, but it will never be a show car or race car while I own it. It just plain has too many little things wrong with it. For now the plan is just what you said fix it up and drive it around. I plan on having fun with it, and if I fall in love with it the way that most everyone on here has then maybe I will buy another one to customize.

As far as contacting the company, it was a private seller and like I said I got it for scrap price, I am pretty sure that I could part out what I have and make more than a healthy profit if that were my goal, but I want to play with it and learn about it. Now having said that if I had bought it for more and/ or from a company I would be royally pissed.