Bad seal. Positive.

Sorry man.

 

...****. Bought it for 3250, around 150 for a new starter and now THIS? I love my seven. This blows donkey ***** for quarters. I am broke, im still paying off the car. I worked all summer to get the money for it and borrowed 1k from my dad that I still owe him. Suggestions? If I sell it, the most I can get for it is around 1k. That means I wasted around 2.5k. My whole summers work. Im attached to my seven and could never sell it. I don't have the tools or resources to rebuild it myself and ATKINS quoted 2500 for a rebuild. What to do?

 

1. Do one of above burping methods. Keep trying again and again till you kinda sorta get the system burped. Curse and/or make puzzled faces if necessary.
2. If you see any improvement, and you know you don't have a blown coolant seal, buy a Lisle funnel and burp again. It's far more thorough and easy: Insert, fill with coolant, start car, wait 10 minutes, done. Do a forum search on "Lisle" to see how users have found it to be far better than other methods. Google "Lisle" for vendors.

www.aaroncake.net has a section on checking the cooling system. Including ways to check for a bad coolant seal.

EDIT: I didn't read carefully, but it seems like someone saw your video and already confirmed a bad seal? If so, whoever sold your car ripped you off. In the future get a buyer's guide and check your car out carefully. All the good options for a new engine will be expensive; almost no way around it. The engine is most of the cost of the car. Even if you do it yourself I think just the cost of the parts is expensive.

 

www.rotaryresurrection.com

Kevin is a great, straightforward guy who offers the cheapest rebuild service in North America. He's a good ways from you, so I don't know what the shipping will be like, but your hard parts *should* be reusable. More specifically your hard parts should not have been made un-usable by what killed the motor. If the chrome is flaked off of the housings, or if they warped from overheating then you'll need new ones, but mine was fine. I had pretty much the exact same story.

It really isn't terribly hard to yank the motor out of these things either. The hardest part really is knowing where to hook everything back up. Though I suggest a hoist, I've heard of big guys just getting in there and hefting it out one man, so a small crew can make fairly short work of it.

 

Eric, I have never seen an unburped system on any car behave that way.

If he wanted to verify he could technically just run the car until the entire displaced volume of the cooling system worth of air had come out of that filler neck. It shouldn't take too long.

I'm still obviously just one man's opinion, but I've been there.

 

I didn't mean to imply that he doesn't (or does) have a blown coolant seal. I see these threads all the time, skimmed it, thought he wanted to burp. If it's a blown seal, then forget all that.

 

gotcha. Yeah, he posted a video of it. I try to shy away from the diagnosis, as a lot of the symptoms can be signs of other things (as you know).

 

so judging by the video, it is a blown coolant seal? What are my options? Sell the car (**** that I love my seven and id loose money), save money for a rebuild (it would take forever), buy an engine seperatly and get it installed (costs too much). do it all myself (no experience, tools or place to do it). What would you guys recommend. I'm going to college next year so I wont be getting a lot of money.

 

Rotary Resurrection will likely be cheaper than doing it yourself your first time. There are tools and other one-time expenses along with paying for your mistakes.

The only options that are "cheaper" are bad options. A Jspec imported engine is a bad idea (they're junkyard motors... they sat for a long time. They have the same problem as yours). Trying to use stops-leak, eggs, or any other BS to "repair" the coolant seals is a veeeeerrrryyy bad idea.

There is no non-rebuild situation. There is no engine that is cheaper to swap in than it is to rebuild. There is no way to fix it without a rebuild.

I'm not really sure what else to tell you. I'm fairly broke myself, but haven't EVER screwed up even a LITTLE on credit, and have plenty of history. I was able to essentially pay for my rebuilds at 0% interest. It's pretty much paid off, and I still have 8 more months before I would be paying interest on it. When it's paid off I'll shred the card/close the account. I hate owing money, but I wasn't selling my 7 either.

Oh, also... you're in college. Just sell drugs to make the money.

 

do you think running the car short distances and always topping off with coolant afterwards will damage the car/ make it worse? Also, I went out and topped it off/revved it again, and there where only big bubbles not the little champaign bubbles. Is this good or bad? Is there ANYTHING else it could be?

 

I hate to break it to you man, but it does seem to be blown.

 

Edit for your last post. That's exhaust gas you're seeing in either case. Unless what I'm seeing in the video is just strangely surging fluid and not bubbles (video quality for the lose). If you rev it... it's gonna throw lots of air in that system. When I ran mine down the hill to the storage lot, it was throwing coolant all over the place out of there from the air rushing out.

 

It won't last with blown seals. Mine ran 700 miles from purchase fine, then started to run warm for no more than a few hundred. It blew a heater hose from pressurizing the coolant system. It was thanksgiving, but fortunately my cousin was behind me in his silverado. I chopped the hose, and put it back on (forunately had the length). I ran it home like this, but from then on it would only make it very short distances before it approached 2/3 gauge and I shut it off. I re-parked it under its power a few times, and got it into a storage garage. FYI they'll it in a 10x15 with your finger's width to spare from the door.

Theoretically if you keep it under 2/3 and your gauge is accurate, then you are unlikely to warp your housings or anything goofy like that.

I towed it over to my parents house once I had the cash to rebuild, as it's a much better place. If you think you can afford to store it, and just wait (afford both the money and patience) then do so.

 

I've watched the video, and in my opinion it's totally inconclusive. This is why I voted NO in the poll. IMO, it's still very inconclusive, and totally possible that you just have air in your system.

Buy a Yellow Lisle funnel, attach it to your fill port, and start the car and let her run. The rise in coolant level shown on the video is just coolant expanding prior to the T-stat opening IMO. If you start it and run it with the Lisle funnel attached it will expand into the funnel and once the T-stat opens you should see the level "drop." With the T-stat open if you're seeing a consistent stream of medium to large bubbles, it's probably gone, but until you get to that point, I'd say don't give up yet. An occasional bubble or two is just air escaping from your system, so don't freak out if you see a few when running the car. Good luck and post up your results!

 

Thank you for the added hope! The only other video on rx-7 coolant seals I could find is http://youtube.com/watch?v=4p5wlc6Ec6o. A steady stream of bubbles is visible there. In my video (without lisle funnel) there are only the occasional bubbles. I will post the results up in form of another video when I get the funnel.

 

^^ ok, to me it looked like constant bubbles, but like I said youtube quality is the lose.

 

The lisle funnel will give a for sure diagnosis and you will see the bubbles (or lack of hopefully) regardless of the video quality. I just ordered one off of amazon and it should be here on monday or tuesday. untill then I will only drive it to work and back (around 2 miles). Im keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best.

 

if you are really poor i think there is temporary fix for bad coolant seals something like block weld or something like that...i dunno i remeber seeing it a while back

 

Looking at that video on another machine less stuff looks like bubbles coming out. You'll know for sure when you get your lisle, or if you rent a coolant system pressure tester from Advance or someone.

 

There ARE bubbles, but it isnt a constant champaign sized flow. Its an occasional thing. The size of the bubbles vary as well. Does this indicate a leak or air in the system? something else perhaps? I hate bubbles!

 

My bubbles were in no way "champagne sized" but I think there's a pretty good reason for that. It was pretty darned constant though. I think sometimes it would collect somewhere and come up as a bigger bubble, but mostly 1/4" to 1/2" wide bubbles.

This pictur is huge, and the hosting slow... but here's my front iron coolant seal groove. See anything missing? I don't know if that was the cause of, or was caused by my bad coolant seals, but I imagine the former.

http://69.249.35.114/internal/Housin...e_Failure2.jpg

 

...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNIIfJkpu8k

 

So, is this latest video with your Lisle funnel? Yes, I see some bubbles after the thermostat opens, but they seem to settle down after a minute or so. Look at the FD video on Youtube. Now THAT motor is gone and truly demonstrates the 'champagne bubbles' that everyone describes. Bottom line is that if you run it several times with the funnel and get most of the air out and it still runs hot, it's likely dead. Borrow a pressure tester and test your pressure cap just to make sure. If your caps are fresh (i.e., new and hold pressure) and you've cycled it several times to remove the air, yet it still overheats, I'm not sure what else to tell you. Has anything changed since cycling the motor a couple of times with the large funnel? Is it running any cooler?

 

Yes its running at normal opperating temps, but Im still loosing coolant. Help?

 

heater core is what you need to have checked, that is one place you can lose coolant and never smell it or see it, or even notice.