Recently bought a 2000 Mazda 626 wagon with 300,000 kms on the clock. The car has a 2.0L 4 cylinder petrol engine.
Got it cheap with a plan to practice my home mechanic skills on. It was smoking before, but only for about 10 seconds on cold start-up. It also has a rocker cover gasket leak where the top of the engine was covered in oily sludge.
As the car was running plain water in the radiator I decided to drain and flush the radiator and fill it with good quality longlife coolant. On one of a series of drains and flushes to get all the rust out, it obviously developed an air bubble and as I was idling the car, thr temperature gauge got up to 3/4 for a minute or so before I shut it off, when it normally sits at the halfway mark.
The car has now started smoking really badly with loads of grey smoke. Did I stuff it up completely when I let the temperature runaway a bit?
At the same time as changing coolant I also put in the crank case Rislone High Mileage Compression Repair with Ring Seal and Forte Seal Conditioner. These treatments are supposed to reduce smoke rather than increase it and have worked well in previous cars I've had where the rings were worn. http://rislone.co.nz/catalog/view/481-high-mileage-compression-repair-with-ring-seal-44447
_frodo_,
Apr 21, 7:12am
Sounds like the head gasket has gone.
franc123,
Apr 21, 7:18am
You wanted to practice home mechanics by dumping what I call American Slob chemicals in the motor? That's a good one. It sounds like a complete lemon,what you've probably done is caused the head gasket to seep after doing the coolant change, having a bit of a localised overheat in the area won't have helped. The muppet alarm should have gone off when you did the PPI and saw the dirty water in there, Mazdas geerally absolutely hate cooling neglect, you've probably got blocked radiator and water pump rot issues too, in fact that's probably going to be the next thing to leak. Its stuffed dude and chemicals ain't going to change that, the previous owner knew it was on borrowed time too no doubt.
robotnik,
Apr 21, 7:18am
Oops, headgasket eh, will have to do a teekay test on it. Was planning to put a new engine in at some stage. Might have to do it sooner than I had planned, LOL.
robotnik,
Apr 21, 7:24am
I got it really cheap and I knew it was stuffed. Was looking at putting a new engine in at some stage anyway.
thejazzpianoma,
Apr 21, 7:24am
I would say the car was likely on the brink of head gasket failure prior to your doing the coolant change. It may even be that the gasket had already failed and was being held together with wonder potion mixed in with the brown sludge water.
So don't be too hard on yourself, you may not have caused it.
I would suggest the next port of call is to do another test or two to confirm the head gasket leak.
In the good news department, if you decide to stick with it, you now get to try the exciting task of head gasket replacement.
Good on you for getting in and having a go. We all have to start somewhere and even though this time it may not have been your fault, mistakes will happen and that's a big part of learning. Working on a cheap old machine like you are is a great way to mitigate the cost of such error's.
Keep up the good work, don't be afraid to come back for advice/discussion and don't be put off by negative comments. If you need help with what head gasket tests to do give us a yell.
bigfatmat1,
Apr 21, 7:43am
I put some smoke stop treatment in a engine that wasnt overly bad 50km later couldnt see behind vehicle and used 2l of oil in 100km. IMO 3/4 temp would not usually cause damage for the short time you had vehicle running. Headgasket would not usually cause excessive smoke.
extrayda,
Apr 21, 7:47am
How much of that Rislone stuff did you put into it? Bottle on the link you pasted shows 500ml. Did you drain some oil out first? If not, the oil may be overfull - easy to check.
extrayda,
Apr 21, 7:49am
I'd be checking the oil level, if overfull dump a bit and see what happens. If it's not overfull, I would dump the lot and put in some cheap oil (and change filter) and see if the smoke clears up.
msigg,
Apr 21, 8:04am
As jazz said, I think it probably had a head gasket issue already, that's why it had clear water in it. they obviously didn't want to waste any more money on coolant, Check out wrecked cars at auction or the wreckers for a whole new engine, probably easier as you don't know what the bottom end is like, I have seen those things do plenty more than those km and all good, just need to do cam belts and tensioner upgrade.
mojo49,
Apr 21, 8:50am
Try putting Chemiweld through the cooling system. Follow the instructions except after draining and refilling, dont tighten down radiator cap. If that stops the smoking then cut the coolant drawback valve off the inside of the radiator cap and run it with no pressure in the radiator. I ran an L300 like that for 3 years and just topped up the coolant once a month. (And before the xspurts jump in NO it never overheated, not even when towing a caravan.)
mechnificent,
Apr 21, 9:00am
This. I'd be checking for a badly blown head gasket, or turbo leaking water or oil into the exhaust. and if neither of those were causing it, I'd drain the oil and change it once or twice.
robotnik,
Apr 21, 9:17am
Thanks for the tips guys. The oil level is below the full mark.
I happen to have some K-Seal gasket in a bottle which I will try if the head gasket is gone.
No turbo on this car by the way.
ema1,
Apr 21, 9:46am
If it has an increase in smoke and oil usage like you say it has I'd go to the extent that the oil control rings on the pistons could be defective and oil will be going past the piston rings into the combustion chambers. Remove the oil filler cap check for excessive blow by through the filler while the engine is running, if that's the case then wear and or heat damage to rings allowing excessive blow by will be your problem? Once over heated Mazda engines around this vintage and earlier tend not to like much in the way of over heating. going by past experience with the type pre 2000? Head warping can lead to head gasket issues, usually the problem starts off with water pump failure and it can chain react surprisingly/seriously quickly to the over heating stage unfortunately? Also stating the fact the engine had plain old water in cooling system there's a very high chance that electrolysis has set in and caused damage to the cylinder head and gasket as well? Actually antifreeze/coolant will seek out any likely escape route via damage corrosion etc that plain water will be less likely to do. fact. A replacement engine of known confirmed state could be a cost effective option in the end. Cheers.
kazbanz,
Apr 21, 8:38pm
Robotnic--a possible alternative answer is that in fact the cars head gasket blew awhile ago. The rust etc in the system was actually a stop leak product the last owner put in the cooling system. You flushing washed it all out and so the leak is back.
intrade,
Apr 21, 9:29pm
ok going back to your original post pouring crap in to a engine is not exactly what is classed as practice home mechanic skills. Next thing is why do you by a pile of crap where the same year of car can have 10 different components,on them its like every week mazda went and had used a new cheap supplyer of parts to keep there assembly lines going .for that reason alone you would have been better with a mitsubishi. or if you really wanted to learn a car that is sold in the usa as the usa has all information on the net for any car wiring diagrams for 16$ us for electrical roblem solfing. mazda has 0 information parts are nin available and if they are they want 500% more money then any other car make parts cost. years ago i told ambo11 to stop mucking about with his 626 crap he had . even the naigbour put all his mazdas in the crusher and got a 1978 volvo to mess abouts with.
intrade,
Mar 1, 6:19pm
now to what might have happened this is a explenation but not what i can proof just something that makes sense . Your cooling system was rotten to the core you cleaned the crap out and it was also low on compression. the rislon has built the compression back up putting loads more pressure on the rotten headgasket, Blowing it out now this would mean the rislon might have worked . post 15 is also a plausdible answer what could have happened.
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