Good evening,

I just bought a 1972 RX3 Wagon with 35,996 miles. The car is stock and complete, with pretty good interiors. However, the car was left under a tree for the past 40 years developing rust around the windshield fender and the driver and passenger floor pans. All other rust appears to be superficial. The first owner told me that he stopped using the wagon in 1978 after it was parked for the night and did not start the following day. He removed the spark plugs, and water came out of the spark plugs holes. Given that it was a low mileage engine, is there a possibility that the water seals failed or an iron cracked? I suspect that the carburetor may have failed and kept injecting gasoline, therefore, flooding the engine. I will be removing the exhaust to take a look at the exhaust port to try to find out what happened. Anybody with a horror experience of an engine failing at such low mileage?

 

Congrats on your find , please post some pics when you can . My guess is the original 12A ( twin distributor model) engine is toast , likely from overheating . If liquid came out of the spark plug holes in 1978 it would likely been coolant. The pre 1974 engines not only had weaker seals , but poorer casting design for coolant flow and those engine were lucky to make it to 50000 miles . If water/ antifreeze has been sitting in there all this time that motor won't be worth rebuilding ...sorry.

 

congratulations on your new Wagon.

i love those cars. my brother had one, though i think his was a later model. at any rate, post some photos of it when you can.

 

As requested attached requested attached are some pictures of the wagon. I am in the process if dissembling it with the objective of taking are of all the rust and getting it painted.

 

Fun pictures and good luck on the project!