Bob_The_Normal

Well, last night I took the car out on the freeway for the first time as a test run because I was going to be taking it on the freeway up to Santa Barbara for the weekend (to put miles on the rebuild).

About 5-10 mins from work a coolant seal let go on the either the front or middle plate front side. Have water on the plugs in the front rotor... *sigh*

I could probably bring it down to one thing... the housing-front plate was left out too long before I tensioned the stack down... so the RTV cured, when it tensioned down... put pressure on the seals or something.

That's just a guess...

But yeah, it's dead... I can run it on just the rear rotor but it's horrible and the smoke is unbelievable.

Considering my options now... I really just want a running car, but my credit is maxxed out and my bank account is empty... maybe if I get a good tax return I can get by, but otherwise I have to save up for at least two months to afford the rebuild... I wouldn't mind doing it again myself but I have heavy doubts I'll be able to convince my dad to let me... his garage, his tools, etc.

=(

But now that I've learned so much abour rotaries... I just can't give up on this car.

--Gary

CodyHokieFD

sorry to hear about that gary. Thanks for you input on my problem the other day. I unplugged those connections and then today I jumped her and shes started and ran great and the alt. charged up the battery so its good to go.

-- I know what you mean about the money situation im stuck now waiting for the money to get my front end repaired. Its very sad. Fortunatly i have one semester of school, then i will have some money. Anyways good luck with your rebuild and definitly do not give up on the car - ever. Hope you get that good tax return, im hoping for mine too.


---Jake

jhammons01

That is too bad. I am hoping myluck is a little better. I am about two weeks behind you with my rebuild.

There is a guy that will put a motor in for $1300. He is in the Fontana area. He had a motor that he built about four years ago just never put it into anything. I almost used him but my curiousity for building my own won out.

minnesotamike

hey man if your rebuilding your own engine u might want to see if the housings warpped that might cause a failure on the first drive. sorry to here about that

RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

after thinking about it using RTV isn't a great idea unless you have done alot of rebuilds and can slam it together quickly before it cures, mine has a coolant leak one way into the cooling system. it is either my housing repairs or a blown seal, but i was weary about using RTV due to that fact, i may try a different approach this time.

geargrabber

my rebuild lasted slightly longer than yours-- 50 miles.

i definately feel your pain though bro... but dont give up... ever.

what killed my rebuild was my rushing the assembly proccess, i put the thermopellet in wrong and no cooling spray was getting to the rotors, the rotors expanded away from the rotor bearings and spun them both.

other than that the rebuild was mint! :P

so, now 1 year and 277 dollars later, she's alive and running very strong.

i pulled a 87 motor from the boneyard (front end wreck in junkyard= good find)


good luck friend!

-mike

scathcart

Something's not right about your deducted cause of failure... the rotor bearings have locating tabs to prevent them from spinning, and rotor cannot expand away from the rotor bearings... the rotor is in constant contact with the rotor bearing, and the bearing would expand at the same rate.

Your rotor bearings failed b/c they were getting no oil, not b/c they weren't being cooled.

scathcart

You should only need the $120 or so for new coolant seals to rebuild it, if you're able to redo it again.
Personally, I never use RTV on coolant seals. The seals were designed to be able to move in their grooves... if the pitting is severe enough that it needs a curing fluid to fiill the holes, then you probably would be better off just using better conditions housings/irons.

rs_1101

agreed with scathcart and such. at least everything in there is new! so you probably dont need the full rebuild kit, just alittle work and some new housing/irons.. its not so bad man!

if you wanted to you could always just drop some crazy motor in there. id like to see an ej20t in a mazda personally..

Parastie

Suck man, stories like this scare me

scoomfd

Their seems a lot of guys in the states that rebuild their own engines, over in the UK its another matter with 99% of people using tuners to rebuild them.

So think it lucky mate, it costs you $277 it costs us around $3000!!!!!!!

Scott.

RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

this could be an overlooked problem like as in my engine rebuild, it is very easy to overlook electrolysis (pitting) in the middle of the rotor housings around the spark plug lands and exhaust port lands. coolant seals don't pop unless they have a good reason to: new seals are resilient to overheating but not to severe overheating, neither are the irons or rotor housings. be sure there wasn't severe pitting on the seal contact areas. be sure there is no electrolysis in some hard to see spots in the rotor housing coolant passages. be sure you are cleaning the threads with the proper tap/dies and torqueing the pieces properly. lastly, be sure your cooling system is not blocked or thermostat stuck.

i rebuilt mine 3 times so far in the last 2 months because of oddball problems that weren't obvious when i was rebuilding it, those problems gave me invaluable knowledge about these engines and also every time i took the engine apart i did some small mods to make it better. so far the engine runs good but i need to replace the rotor housings because my electrolysis was too bad to repair, the car runs strong even while losing compression and i think i will be very happy with how it finally does come out.

if you have any questions feel free to ask me, i'm sure any of the other rotary building Gurus here wouldn't mind you bugging them for a little bit too.

good luck and don't let it get you down, it almost beat me but looking back it taught me things i probably wouldn't have if the problems never arose in the first place. this time around it is getting a UIM and wastegate port job...

geargrabber

at first i thought this, but then relised that the thermopellet had nothing to do with oil getting to the rotor bearings, also the shaft bearings looked new.

Bob_The_Normal

Thanks all... taking a look at my bank account, and the fact that I guess my job (I've been there almost a year) decided to give me sick pay for the entire of last week, when I wasn't expecting it... I've pretty much decided to rebuild it again, myself. -_-;;

My dad is still gonna be a total ***.. but I'm confident that this time I can get it done very fast... there's nothing I don't already know exactly how to do... and all the parts are clean, that was one of the hardest parts ever.

The only thing that worries me is this time I'm going to get some help spec-ing all the parts... to make sure I did it right. I dont want to get it back together again and see it fail again... I have to figure out EXACTLY what caused it this time.

Wish me luck though... I'm also thinking that after I do it this time, I'm going to offer my "services" to other people in the area... depending on how long it takes me this time. I figure if I can do it twice, I might as well start doing it for people for some extra money haha..

I doubt anyone will ask me though with so many good builders in the area. *shrug*

Hahaha... $277 for what a soft rebuild? I'd say if you aren't full prepared with all the tools for cleaning, measuring, removing tough bolts, etc etc... it probably costs about $1300 total from start to finish to do it YOURSELF. I know that sounds like a lot, but that's really about how much it has cost me over the last three months... from things like tranny fluid, oil, to things that have to replaced no matter what, like gaskets... things that you SHOULD replace (HOSES!!) cleaning injectors, etc etc etc.

It'll probably cost me about $300 to do this rebuild, but that's a pretty hefty estimate with lots of room for extras. I plan to replace all the hoses this time if I can afford them. (I replaced all the vaccum hoses this time, but many of the heater hoses could really use replacing) I will also actually order the CORRECT grommets to seat the injectors in... although the fabricated fuel line cut to grommet size seemed to work quite well apart from letting the injectors rotate a bit more than I was comfortable with hehe.

There's all kinds of small things that add up... granted many probably wouldn't get done with an engine builder either, but many of them would.

Wish me luck!

--Gary

BlaCkPlaGUE

Man if you have tons of water coming out, I'd be worried about the housing water jacket collapsing. Theres nothing you can do until you pull it apart, but you have nothing to lose really.
If your going to store it before the rebuild, I would suggest draining the coolant and pumping the combustion chamber full of wd 40 and crank it.

Take off the belts pull the front and rear plugs, spray in wd40 or just motor oil and turn the crank by hand 1/3. Spray oil in each spark plug again (a substantial amount cause its going to be rebuild later anyways) and crank by hand 1/3. Does this a third and final time.
Coolant in the combustion chamber causes rust, and thats the last thing you want to clean up when your rebuilding it.
If this advice is ****, please correct me, but I think its the best way to preserve the engine until the rebuild.
I know my next rebuild will defenitly include new housings at the least, It will be expensive but well worth it.

Good luck with your project.

geargrabber

277 for a junkyard spec engine ^^

which i know is a steal, this engine was complete-- flywheel, LIM UIM alternator , waterpump, airpump etc... pretty much plug and play.

Bob_The_Normal

Haha, damn where'd you get that?

--Gary

scathcart

Not **** advice at all, very good actually. To add a bit more:
Excessive water in the engine will always happen from three things:
1> A pinched inner coolant seal during assembly
2> As you suggested, and more likely since the engine was running, a cracked coolant seal groove, or
3> Inexperienced porter going too thin on the primary ports which led to a crack in the intake port to the water jacket, feeding coolant into the engine.

Pinhole helaks around the exhaust and spark plugs DO happen, but it is far more rare.

Number 2 tends to happen the most for first time rebuilders.

Lastly, I wouldn't spray WD-40 into the engine for two reasons: Wd-40 destroys rubber (try spraing it onto a balloon filled with air... it will pop in seconds), and two, it tends to puddle. I would use a more viscous fluid, such as engine oil.
Also, if he was using coolant with at least 30% ethylene glycol-to water, he shouldn't get rust anyway, due to the corrosion inhibitors in the ethylene glycol.


Nice post though, BlackPlague.

geargrabber

at pick your part here in stanton lemme know if you wanna troll the boneyard, ill go with.

jhammons01

Gary,

I am local if you need help. I am not much better at this than you are being a newbie to rx7s. If you need someone for moral support let me know. I run over.

I went to Stanton. didn't see any rexs with a motor in it. I did see a red one with a drive line still intacked. But no motors.

geargrabber

haha! a red 87 with cruise controll, AAS and front end damage?? thats the car i took my engine out of! shes running strong and everything works on it!

jhammons01

GearG,

Did you have to rebuild that motor???? Did you just stick it in with no rebuild??

geargrabber

stuck it on in. I wanted to tear it down and do a proper rebuild, but my dad didnt want to spend anymore money. way he figures if it works why mess with it?

i tried to explain better sealing, longer engine life, knowing what the condition all the parts are in... but damn, i guess i got lucky, this motor pulls really hard.


heres a hot tip, when your looking for motors in the junkyard, look for accident victims -- preferably with front end damage, but not so bad the body came in contact with the engine.

i saw two fire victims ( change your pulsation damper!!) stay away from the cars that look in good shape, chances are the engine is toast.

jhammons01

That's a good point. But your hair covers it well(jK).

The pulsation Damper thingy is getting changed during this rebuild.

You did get lucky, I wouldn't trust a PYP motor at all. BUT you have it in and it runs good so I would trust it from now on. I just couldn't see putting it all back together and.....and.....nothing. Or worse blue 007 smoke screen. That is why I am rebuilding right now.