Warm weather at last!

[clocker]

More crap news...

Mondays are my day off so they are also the day I get the car worked on.
Yesterday was the appointment to have the oilpan resealed (Mazda uses a proprietary sealant instead of gaskets and mine had standard RTV which resulted in a nice steady leak).

Up on the lift, the first step is undoing the motor mounts so the engine can be jacked up to provide clearance for dropping the pan.
Both my mounts fell out in pieces...basically the front of my motor has just been sitting on the mounting pads, not tied down at all.

Great.

The oilpan is held on with @20 bolts- six of mine were broken and the heads had just been stuck on with silicon to disguise them. This was probably the result of using an air ratchet and overtorqueing the small 6mm bolts and explains why the pan leaked so badly.
The threads across the front were all crossthreaded- these bolts are the most difficult to install because of tight clearance with the steering rack.

Great.

So, what should have been a half hour procedure turned into a four hour nightmare but Marc, my mechanic, persevered and made everything right. To my amazement (and his eternal credit) he did not change the original labor estimate and only charged me what a normal job would have cost.

Also while up on the lift we noticed that the bottom left corner of the radiator was damp and after cleaning up the accumulated crud, discovered that the joint between the plastic end tank and the aluminum core had been epoxied.
My radiator is essentially a ticking bomb and could catastrophically fail at any time. There is no way I'll embark on my vacation trip next month (approximately 3000 miles) with this rad...I'd get ulcers worrying about it since you just know it will let go at the worst possible time/place- probably in the middle of Nebraska at 2AM.

Great.

Naturally, none of these problems were in the budget for this month although both the mounts and the rad were on my list for future replacement.

I sucked it up and ordered the motor mounts this morning ($43 apiece, so not too bad) and have begun the hunt for a radiator.
No way I'm getting a stock unit- besides being stupid expensive, I hate the crimped plastic/aluminum construction (although, to be fair, this one did hold up for 16 years).
I had planned on buying a Fluidyne aluminum rad eventually but unless I can find a good used one, it's just not in the budget right now so I'm kinda in a corner.
We'll just have to keep fingers crossed and hope for the best.

I did have one thing go well...
Since I bought the car I've been searching for the bellypan that had been missing but had no luck. This piece is critical for proper cooling as it keeps the intake air from just spilling out the bottom of the car instead of funneling through the rads (yeah, there are multiple cooling panels- the oil cooler, the AC condenser and the radiator).
My mechanic rummaged around in his storage area and found one in great codition which he gave me.
Truly a prince among men...

Can hardly wait for the next nasty little surprise to rear it's head.

[lynx]

Ah, the infamous Mazda broken engine mounts.

I remember when we were rallying a Mazda (not an RX7) in the early 80s we were advised to construct a box round the mounts so that the engine didn't move much when (not if) the mounts broke.

Sounds like the next 10 years didn't bring any improvements in that area.

[j2k4]

Motor mounts have been a bugaboo forever.

Solid and "unbreakable" breaks/fatigues other things, and at the very least, age will do them in.

Interesting fact:

The fellow who did the production research on the hydro-mount patent was a neighbor of mine in the early eighties - he had some really neat prototype hardware to play with (we spent a lot of time playing with it, too).

The local outfit who was doing the work set him up with a complete machine shop and a six-bay garage to play in on the south side of town.

He had (for example) an '84 Ford Thunderbird with a ZF five speed and a five cylinder BMW diesel under the hood.

Lots of that type of thing.

He was supremely talented, and when the mount was ready he was hired for really large money by some German engineering outfit.

Anyway...

Can the tank be separated/re-affixed, or is the radiator too ripe?

[clocker]

Ah, the infamous Mazda broken engine mounts.

I remember when we were rallying a Mazda (not an RX7) in the early 80s we were advised to construct a box round the mounts so that the engine didn't move much when (not if) the mounts broke.

Sounds like the next 10 years didn't bring any improvements in that area.

That sounds like a very good idea.
Seriously.

To be fair though, the mounts are probably original and, judging by the hackwork I've discovered all through the car, were probably damaged (and ignored) by the "Mazda expert" who previously maintained the vehicle.

Can the tank be separated/re-affixed, or is the radiator too ripe?

Too ripe and too critical to fudge.
Found a used all aluminum rad right here in Denver.
Going to look at it after work tonight.

[rodcarpenter]

I just finished putting in my power fc and got back to my garage after a test drive. As I was sitting in the garage I revved the car up to feel the differences in the car. After revving it up a few times I started to see smoke. Then I opened the hood and smoke from burning coolant was everywhere. I looked on the floor and saw all of my coolant spilling out into a big puddle on the floor. I am scared to try and start up the car. I am pretty sure that I don't have any more coolant in the car casue there was so much spilling out of the car onto the garage floor. I know that the pfc is not the problem cause the car was running fine before I brought it back home. I have been experiencing minor overheating problems for the last few months. Nothing major, just over average temperature readings. After seeing the smoke, my temperature gauge read just under the top hash mark. I have heard about stock AST's blowing, but I looked at mine and it doesn't seem like its leaking. What do I do now??????? Please help.....

[lynx]

I just finished putting in my power fc and got back to my garage after a test drive. As I was sitting in the garage I revved the car up to feel the differences in the car. After revving it up a few times I started to see smoke. Then I opened the hood and smoke from burning coolant was everywhere. I looked on the floor and saw all of my coolant spilling out into a big puddle on the floor. I am scared to try and start up the car. I am pretty sure that I don't have any more coolant in the car casue there was so much spilling out of the car onto the garage floor. I know that the pfc is not the problem cause the car was running fine before I brought it back home. I have been experiencing minor overheating problems for the last few months. Nothing major, just over average temperature readings. After seeing the smoke, my temperature gauge read just under the top hash mark. I have heard about stock AST's blowing, but I looked at mine and it doesn't seem like its leaking. What do I do now??????? Please help.....

Try reformatting.

[clocker]

I have been experiencing minor overheating problems for the last few months. Nothing major, just over average temperature readings.

Looks like your "minor overheating problem" has just escalated into a "major cooling system repair".
Obviously, the first thing is to find where the coolant decided to escape, which should be fairly easy given the magnitude of the leak.
Then- why did it overheat so catastrophically?

Then reformat.

[accat13]

Too ripe and too critical to fudge.
Found a used all aluminum rad right here in Denver.
Going to look at it after work tonight.

My guess the used aluminum rad did not meet expectations

[clocker]

Don't know...pickup was delayed till Friday night.

[clocker]

Busy day for ole man clocker today and believe me, the muscles are screaming.
Especially the lower back and legs.

Oh well, no pain, no gain.

The plan was to install the new (to me, at least) aluminum radiator, all the drive belts, thermostat and coolant.
That was the plan...didn't quite work out that way.

First came stripping out the front of the engine bay.
Here we have already removed the rad, intake, battery and loosened the belts...


This is what the front of the old rad looked like. Looking at the lower left corner you can see the epoxy (or whatever) applied previously to seal a slow leak. This didn't really work out too well (at least for me) and there is an extra buildup of crud as moisture attracted dirt, etc.

It's odd, the AC condensor, directly in front of the radiator, was almost free of any crud, so where all this crap came from is a mystery.

To be prudent, I decided to fill the new rad with water as a simple leak test before installation. While awaiting results I went ahead and cleaned the newly exposed areas- this pretty much finishes my "poor mans" engine bay restoration...

After this the new belts and thermostat were installed.

All this went more easily than I expected. No nasty surprises, all the hardware came out without issue and I was optimistic.

Prematurely, as it turned out.

The alloy rad leaks...in at least two places and keep in mind, this was not under pressure, so it's possible there are more.
Here are the offending spots...


Needless to say, I am not a happy camper.
Naturally, the seller is claiming that the rad was in usable condition when I got it Friday and the damage is my doing.
Of course, my take is slightly different but what can you do?
But used - and cheap- and ya takes your chances.

I reinstalled the old rad after a good cleaning and tomorrow, after the new motor mounts are installed, I'll take the leaky unit to a repair shop and see what can be done.

This is disappointing as I had planned on this weekend being the end of my pre-roadtrip major maintenance and have a list of purely cosmetic details I wanted to attack but TBH, outside of the financial considerations of the repair (or whole new radiator, depending on the diagnosis) it's not that big a deal...I can do the rad swap in about an hour and a half.

Now for a nice hot shower, some Advil and dinner.