A friend of mine (mweidner) had his radiator leak...found it to be leaking where the aluminum and plastic sections come together. I don't remember exactly what he did to fix it, but I thhink he just crimped the aluminum a little.... Koda, try gettting a pressure tester, then you can hear the leak.
Well, I got ambitious and decided to do the timing belt... I mean if I have to drain the cooling system, well, might as well do this job when it was already drained.
That was a mistake.
I went to get the little bolt on the bottom of the thermostat housing, and well, it turns out that a 6 mm bolt is no match for 200K miles of road salt. Sigh.
I yanked the radiator out to give myself more room. I managed to kinda slide/sit right in there (I'm pretty short). The problem is that it is very recessed, and I can't see what I am doing. I tried hammering a smaller socket on....No go.....I tried cutting it off, but there isn't much room for the dremel, and after all of that my back decided it was done. I am thinking that I will try drilling it out and EZ outing it tomorrow. Biggest problem is that thermostat housing is plastic, one slip of the dremel means that I have to replace that too.
I did notice that I could get the timing belt cover off if I didn't have that damn PS/AC bracket in the way, P/S barely works anyways, and I don't have AC....
On the upside, the crankshaft pully came off no problem for me. One hit with the impact and a few turns with my puller. Nice. That thing is what fought me last time.
I love the Limas, I just hate working on them!
When all of this is done, I still have plugs and that damn filler hose (It's a stepside, and the dealer was closed today, but I have a feeling this is going to be $$$), and I still have my Inspection/echeck.
I stopped and was looking at an 03 today, and I sorta like that new 4 cylinder, 4 plugs and NO timing belt.... It's unfourtunate that it's a mazda engine.
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