Getting her on the road, or not

Build Diary - Mazda RX7 FD

@armonb

23rd June 2023

3 min read

With the warm weather incoming and wanting to enjoy the car for a bit. I decided that she was road worthy and needed an MOT.

I took her out for a short test drive (on a private road of course) and she drove spot-on. I called up a local garage and got her booked in for a couple of days time.

I proceeded to give her a fresh oil and filter change, spark plug change, and went for another short test drive, and opened her up a bit this time! Amazing.

Got home, parked up and noticed a dripping underneath.

Appeared to be coolant, and it was coming out pretty fast! I checked all easily accessible hoses and tightened them to no avail.

I put a jug and some cardboard underneath and left it over night to assess how bad it was.

The next morning, the cardboard was drenched and the jug was full. MOT booking cancelled, and some major head-aches on the way.

The plan

I couldn't figure out where the leak was coming from. My only option was to remove everything that was causing an obstruction. This included the intake system and intercooler.

With it all removed, it still proved difficult to locate the leak. So I decided to just replace all of the coolant hoses.

I found a UK based company, SFS Performance that sold a full silicone kit for around £120. And they had a purple option which I was keen on!

This plan however led me down a rabbit hole. As to replace some of the hoses, a lot more parts had to come off the engine and I thought - "Whilst these parts are off, I may as well replace what I can so I don't have to remove them again".

Needless to say, locating a coolant leak turned in to;