My FC has a bad water seal on the upper coolant pipe. I can get a full seal and gasket kit for $200, but I'd rather not spend $200 on a bunch of seals when I only need one. Anyone want to help point me in the right direction? See the attachment (assuming I did it right)

Anyone parting out in the area who might have this part, feel free to contact me if you want to sell it.

 

pic didn't work.
attach a pic and we can see what you are talking about.

 

oops; forgot to hit the "upload" button. Hopefully this works.

 

That's a clamp, not a seal.

If you're talking about the thermostat neck cracking and leaking, rotary13b1.com has replacements made in aluminum.

 

Are you referring to the gasket between the thermostat neck and thermostat housing? It's available at any Mazda dealer. Just tell them what you need. Or you can cut one out of gasket paper.

 

I think it's the gasket, not the clamp itself. I should be able to get the car home on Wednesday, then I'll know for sure and I'll try to snap a couple pics once I get the pipe off. Right now I'm just going off what I was told by the fellow I bought it from. Glad to hear I shouldn't need to spend $200 on a full seal and gasket kit to fix it though.

 

I make my own gaskets now. Go to a local auto parts store and ask for gasket making material... Be sure you get the proper material, though. They sell different materials for different applications. You could make ten or twelve gaskets for the price of one from a dealership.

 

Thanks, I'll definitely look into that. I got the RX-7 home today and took a good look at the seal in question. I hadn't realized that the coolant hose was an actual hose; I had been under the impression that it was a pipe for some reason. I inspected the clamp and everything seemed to be in order. I snapped a few pictures on my cell to verify; I'll get them uploaded later when I get to my computer.

 

My laptop HD fried and won't boot up so I haven't been able to refer to the shop manual since I picked up the car, but I'm working on it slowly and carefully.


here's the seal in question. Everything looks fine. The coolant cap pictured wasn't tight, so I tightened it. I think that may have been the problem there.


I'm not sure what these are for, but the fact that they're not connected to anything makes me uncomfortable. They're to the left of the engine.


Got all the parts of my spare engine tidied up nicely. I've got a couple components that probably need to be replaced and I want to clean up the rotors (housings are actually pretty clean besides rust in the coolant jackets) then I'll start putting it together.

 

Second picture; associated with A/C. No big deal that they're open... Unless you want A/C.

 

I think I found the coolant error.


[right of the radiator, under the battery bay; leads to a port on what looks like a smaller secondary radiator? I never noticed it until I actually jacked the front up a couple days ago, and I'm not seeing it in the FSM.]
and

[left of the radiator, right of that air filter]

Looking at the FSM though, these don't connect. So I have two coolant hoses that are leading to nowhere, not two connecting ends? This is getting silly. :/

 

Oh wow scratch that. It's a lubricant hose on the first picture. I'll try and work on picking up replacements for both hoses and see what I can achieve.

 

Any time you're dealing with coolant associated parts, you must clean the overflow/ excess... Or else you'll go crazy hunting other coolant leaks that may or may not exist.

 

Looking at your picture with the AFM, I spotted two issues:

-AFM needs to be level to assure a proper reading. Otherwise gravity influences it.

-Air pump inlet hose appears to be plugged. This denies air to the air pump, preventing a number of systems from working.

 

The first hose turned out to be a dead scrap of leftover hose from a shoddy repair job by a previous owner. I removed it. The fully intact oil lines were directly underneath it. Glad I dodged that bullet. Seems like a kind of expensive part for what it is.

I also went ahead and ordered an air cleaner because as Mr. Cake pointed out that's an air hose that's sitting there leading to nothing because there's no port on that cheap little aftermarket air cleaner for the air pump inlet hose. I feel kind of stupid for not realizing this earlier. Oh well. I'll put in the new air cleaner as soon as it arrives unless the filter is too dirty to use or it doesn't have a filter, and I'll post another update.

I am looking into jumping the starter cut relay, and I'm going to use this handy little electrical multimeter I picked up to test my ignition, clutch switch, and clutch interlock switch circuit continuity as soon as I figure out how. I'm not really sure what setting to use, or which function. I've never used one of these things before and the instructions are very concise.

 

Alright, so there's no starter cut relay, just the little blue jumper by the trailing coil w/ igniter. That's obviously not the problem.

So I started running continuity tests on the ignition. Everything except ST (see S4 FSM 15.9:Ignition Switch -- single wire B/R) checks out fine. ST doesn't seem to be getting signal (yes, I'm turning the key to the start position) I've verified there are no lesions or other compromises in the integrity of the wire itself, including running a continuity test from one end of the wire to the other, and from the internal contact to the external contact; everything's peachy there. I popped open the ignition cylinder, pulled apart the switching mechanism, and cleaned off all the contacts (stationary and moving) to the best of my abilities given what tools and supplies I have, but that didn't remedy the situation. I think the moving copper contact plate is simply worn to the point that it's not achieving sufficient contact with the contact point. Are these plates something I can replace on a component budget, or is my best option to buy a whole new ignition switch? Seems like a waste of a lot of money when all that's faulty is a little piece of copper.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BECK-ARNLEY-...ht_1817wt_1185

Is this a viable replacement? It looks right, sounds right, says it's right, and it's being sold as "new", so I'd assume there wouldn't be any wear on it. If anyone knows of a better place to get one either cheaper or more reliable), please divulge.

thanks,
-Charlie

 

why the hell is there no hose from the coolant overflow tank to the nipple at the bottom of the fill cap??

>car warms up
>pisses coolant all over itself
>car cools down
>coolant level drops significantly
>fill it up
>car pisses all over itself as soon as it's warm again

Also you upper radiator hose is starting to bulge. Test the fill cap or replace, and replace the bulging hose.

 

hahahahahahaha that must have been the "coolant leak" the previous owner was talking about. I was wondering what was up with those uncovered nozzles. I'll get right on that. Any chance you know the part number and/or the length/gauge the connecting hose needs to be?

As for the upper coolant hose, there's a replacement hose in the back of the car. Looks brand new. I'll swap it in tuesday.

 

I just recently replaced that radiator cap housing nipple hose on my car. I bought some cheap 5/16" fuel hose at an auto parts store. Around 4' (feet) in length.

 

I knew something about this was fishy...

All better

Other end


While routing the hose, I found this. Not sure what to make of it. I need to know (a) what this is, (b) where that cut line is supposed to go (I'm guessing it has something to do with the hose scrap under the battery bay that I pulled out last week), (c) whether it's a vital line that needs to be replaced before I attempt to start the engine, and (d) how much it'll cost to replace. Any help appreciated. I'll be scanning the FSM in the mean time trying to identify this component, but if anyone here already knows what this is and can tell me outright, that would save me some time and effort.


EDIT: Also, thanks dwb87; that info helped a lot. I wouldn't have known what hose to buy at all otherwise. I just named off those specs at the shop, spent $5, and it fit like a dream

 

In picture #1; As long as that long coolant hose connects to the coolant filler cap housing nipple, it is correct. (Nothing fishy.) That little 90 degree hose should be right there in that specific spot. Where is the long hose routed to?

You should have the coolant filler cap nipple routed into the left nipple on the overflow cap and then the small 90 degree hose on the right side of the overflow cap.

Coolant filler neck nipple --hose-> left overflow container nipple --nipple-> small 90 degree hose


Found a reference pic on Google:

 

oh geez; I had it all mixed up (the long hose is currently going to the filler cap nipple.) In my defense I got it like this:

I assumed that hose was connected right and routed it through the engine bay pretty much as soon as I got it and never verified that it was, in fact, properly routed.

So then...what connects to the nozzle at the top of the radiator?

 

^ I kind of wondered the same on my Koyo radiator. I just capped it. As of right now, I've not noticed any adverse effects.

I was thinking about Tee'ing the nipple on top of the radiator into the long line that comes from the coolant filler neck housing nipple. For now I am going to run it how I have it.

 

EDIT: So I found the starter. Didn't realize that it was only visible from underneath the car until I re-read chapter 01 of the FSM and saw it on page 1-15 (item 7). Durpadurp I are smart.

Anyway, the ignition suddenly stopped responding (it was definitely responding before) to anything I did when I was sitting in the car one evening a couple weeks ago just sort of hanging out and I had my foot on the clutch pedal. Suddenly it snapped down and didn't come back up, so I found it with my toe, pulled it up, went to try the ignition, and since then I've been getting nothing from it. The idiot lights don't come on, there's no beeping, no whirring, nothing. So obviously I have a problem with the clutch now that I have to deal with, and I'm honestly a little lost there too. Would flushing/cleaning the master and slave cylinders and pipes amend this problem, or do I need to go deeper than that? I've already checked the clutch switch, clutch interlock switch, starter cut relay (turns out I don't have one; just the blue jumper), and all the other electrical systems I could find related to the clutch-ignition circuit, and I'm not finding any errors there. Both the switches work fine, are connected properly, and are properly depressed by the clutch when they're supposed to be.

 

If you have checked everything that you say you have, it wouldn't hurt to bleed the clutch. Inspect the clutch master and slave cylinders.