Hey, just a heads up. There seems to be a lot of new guys around the forum these days. Here is an important tip. Replacing this hose is one of the first things you should do when you buy an FC:

http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/de...2716&ppt=C0331

This hose gets oil soaked and WILL fail at some point. It attaches to the side of the engine under the oil filter, then snakes around to the firewall to connect to the heater core. If you are driving down the highway and the oil soaked hose fails, you may lose the engine due to massive near-instant coolant loss.

My day started with my kid walking back into the house at 9:15 saying "Hey Dad! I have a pretty substantial coolant leak." It had blown as he drove out of the driveway. I did a temp fix with 5/8" heater hose. Later I might put the molded hose on.

The moral of the story, if you haven't replaced this hose, do it before it kills your engine!

And replace those fan belts once per year too!

Good Luck!

-Jack

 

And that is why you should look under your hood,and perform routine maintenance on the Car.
First thing when getting the car is NOT to start the car,but to Look at the components on the car,and see what the condition of its Parts are.
Anything from Belts,hoses,wires,Crusty Nuts and bolts,dirt and dust.Paint coming off near critical components such as the Brake and clutch master/slave/hoses.
All this tells you if the car was maintained.
leaks,broken plastic components,Rolls of electrical tape around wires,are sure signs that the car was in Bad hands and will be a Handful to get back to normal(running half decent)
.My 2 cents is: try to buy stock and then Modify.Do not Buy Modified unless you know the owner had sense enough to perform the Modification and knew what he was doing!
Belts should be checked every time yo change the oil and filter..do a "once over" every oil change and it should be good enough time to spy anything that may not look right.
Park the car in a spot where you can see if the car looses fluids on the Ground when not in use.
I like to use the Cardbaord trick,,drive over cardboard sheet and park it overnight,,Every once in a while..you'd be amazed at what that will show.IT can pinpoint leaks where you would not know leaks are!..just look up from the Wet spot!
anyways..Ya,.,Heater hose..Good call..Crap gets hot around the area of the oil filter,rear iron,firewall... this should be added to the "Once over" every oil change..the car will die without coolant...Save a Rotary,save your Bank account!

 

My heater hose went crap on me 4 years ago going to work.
Steam was pouring out my engine bay, parked in a lot, and found the heater hose ripped apart from the oil eating away at it. I had to do a quick cap, cut of a 2inch piece and and fill the end with silicone lol. Waited 20-30 mins in the rain for the ghetto cap to dry up a little bit before putting the cap on and driving to work and replacing the hose.

I didnt even know they had molded hoses anymore for it lol, I had to buy some rolled up heater hose from the parts store.
Thanks for the link Jack

 

Every two years:

Dump old coolant.
Remove thermostat and pump water through the engine and heater core.
Remove radiator and pump water in the bottom fitting to flush crud out the top fitting.
Use water and compressed air to remove debris from fins. Straighten any bent fins with a comb.
Replace all heater and radiator hoses.
Reinstall radiator and fill with new coolant.

I pick my hoses up from Malloy Mazda... They're like $20 each.

 

And I work at Malloy Mazda so I get the parts for even cheaper. I am so bad when it comes to maintenance. I have had my car for 4+ years and have yet to replace the heater hoses.

 

LOL!
Too busy buying HID's and a bike.

 

The main reason that hose fails is because oil seeps on it from cracked o-rings between the oil filter tower and pedestal. Sometimes this results in a pinhole leak that is nearly impossible to find. If you don't replace the o-rings, then you are just pissing in the wind and will need to replace the hose again and again. Once you replace the o-rings and hose, you should be good for about 7 years as long as you don't spill oil on the hose during filter changes. The o-ring is part 9954-10-1601 (10-1601-9954 @ Mazdatrix), and you will need two of them.

Fan belts usually last at least 5 years. You should inspect them every year, if not every oil change, but replacing them every year is a complete waste of money. They will start to crack or fray long before they fail.

You should not have a bunch of debris in the cooling system if you use distilled water and coolant mix and avoid stop-leak products. However, if the previous owner wasn't good to the car, then you may end up paying for their neglect. Replacing the hoses every year is quite excessive, and I find it hard to believe that you guys drive in such a harsh environment. Even in the 100F+ Florida heat my 1988 RX-7 hoses still easily lasted 4 years @ 16,000mi/yr, and they were not even showing signs of fatigue when I replaced them. My Ford F150 is still running fine with the original fan belt and hoses, and it is 11 years old and has 150,000 miles on it (but I'm replacing them next weekend if it isn't freezing outside, lol). You guys are seriously throwing your money away here.

 

Good point but it's easy to spill oil on the hose when filling up or servicing the oil filter too.

 

I spill oil all over the place when I pull an RX-7 filter. After I twist it and spill the oil all over, I'm like, "Oh yeah.. Shoulda gotten a screwdriver and stabbed it." Never occurs to me to do that before I remove the filter.

Hence, that hose gets replaced frequently.

The radiator hoses, I usually squeeze them near the fittings and feel for if the nylon/polyester strings inside are snapping. If they are, I replace.

I also usually use hose water to fill radiators. I should probably switch to distilled.

 

Not really, the vertical position of the RX-7 filter makes it even less excusable to spill oil all over. I can pull the filter right now and literally not spill one drop of oil.

If you use cheap filters and change your oil after running the motor to redline , yeah you can make a mess, but why? Mazda oem or K&N filters (only 2 I can think of off the top of my head) have a check valve that prevents oil spillage. Also, changing your oil after the car has been off for a couple hours GREATLY reduces the potential for spillage even w/ non check valve filters.

As far as fill up....i guess they stopped making funnels ?

 

Anti-Drainback valve keeps oil in filters to prevent dry startups.
I do my oil changes on a hot engine.

 

I work in the auto parts business and only very FEW oil filters lack an anti-drainback valve. No oil filter for our RX-7 application lacks this valve.

 

A piece of aluminum foil works wonders. Some of my friends use a rag or newspaper.

You should drain the oil while it is warm so that it drains out of the oil cooler.