I have had a minute oil leak coming from my distributor ever since I bought my car (3 years ago). I didn't worry too much - just cleaned it nicely every time I serviced her.

Today, I found the seriousness of the matter - turns out the oil has been eating away my top radiator hose. I was dropping of my kid at school - as I pulled up outside the school, I saw clouds of steam eminating from the bonnet !

When I inspected the situation, I found that the hose was perfect from end to end, except for right under the distributoy, where it had expanded to almost twice its normal size and finally burst. Luckily, I caught it before the engine ran dry and seized (Ouch !!)

Anyway, I've ordered a new hose from Mazda which should be available by lunch time today. In the meantime, the hose is wrapped with half a roll of insulation tape (terrible bodge, I know, but better than nothing and very temporary). Also, my fingers are covered in blisters from the bloody hot exhaust, which is right next to the hole in the hose ...

Moral of the story - watch out for tiny oil leaks from your distributor and inspect the radiator hoses regularly ...

Cheers smotter, both my 1.5 engines have done this, i think it is a bit of a design fault, not even chaging the dizzy gasket seems to do much good, they don't last very long, might try some extrasealant next time i get mine changed, and i shall be checking my hose very shortly

Been there, done that, pulled over, waited ages for a breakdown truck, put a post on the forum! (Though can't find the post now ).

Yep, mine did it last summer. Thankfully I was in a traffic queue so noticed the steam before the temp guage started rising and pulled over. There was still plenty of water in the system, but there was just no point in carrying on as we wouldn't have made it. Top pipe was about £25 IRC.

Had a tempory dizzy gasket put on (Mazda didn't have one in stock), but that's started leaking. Thanks for the reminder - I was meaning to phone Ma$da for a new gasket before this top pipe balloons up!

Hope you didn't do any damage.

Mark

[quote="Mark.T"]Top pipe was about £25 IRC.[/quote]
That's harsh - my local Mazda dealer just quoted me R86.00 - that's about £7.50 !

[quote="Mark.T"]Hope you didn't do any damage.[/quote]
Fortunately not - after I wrapped the burst part with PVC tape (Honest - it's only temporary ...) I topped up the water and only got about a 1/2 a litre in. (about a pint ...)

You guys should have called the A-Team

Mark

Good morning Tiswas - what time zone are you in, seeing as you seem to have just woken up ...

Good news on the radiator hose front - got the hose at lunch time, along with 2 jubilee clamps, 1 litre anti-freeze and a new o-ring for the distributer. Had the lot in (except for the o-ring - that's a week-end job !) by the end of my lunch break, there in the parking lot !

By the way, that lot cost me R136.96 all in - about £11.90 !

We so live in Rip-off' Britain

Mark

Yup cos everything is import

I had to use an o-ring 1mm thicker than standard on my distributor to get it to stop leaking. A 38 I.D. x 4 instead of a 38 ID x 3. (I have a 2L V6 Lantis).

Ed

Thanks for the tip, Ed - I haven't fitted my distributor seal yet - planning to do it this weekend, so I'll try and get a bigger one before I do ...

No probs,

A good smear of oil on the o-ring and a bit of a wiggle and it should go in fine.

Good luck,

Ed

OK - fitted the oil seal today. My car seems to be running much smoother; probably due to all the oily gunk I cleaned out of the distributer cap while I was doing the job ...

Update ...

It appears that cleaning that gunk out of the distributor cap has also improved my fuel consumption noticably. I've done about 200 km's since I did the oil seal, and so far, I seem to be getting better mileage. I'll check more accurately next time I've filled the tank. So if your distributor oil seal is leaking, I'd recommend you check for muck in the distributor.

Excellent. Another top tip!!

I'm going to have to do this little jobette soon!

Is it a straight forward job? Just remove dizzy, replace gasket, replace dizzy without moving the car and engine in between?


Mark

Frankly I was amazed - I have finally found a job that's easier on my Mazda than it was on my old VW !

NB : STEP 1 (one) ... Make a scratch over the joint between distributor & cylinder head. This is very important in order to replace the distributor in exactly the same place so as not to disturb the timing !

STEP 2 - Remove the distributor cap and note the position of the rotor so as to have it pointing in the same direction upon replacement. At this point you can clean the cap if required so it will be dry by the time you've finished. It's also worthwhile checking the contact point in the middle of the rotor, the bit it connects with in the centre of the cap and the rotor tip. These can be cleaned up nicely with a bit of extra fine wet-n-dry abrasive paper.

STEP 3 - Undo the 2 X 12mm bolts holding the distributor to the head and wiggle 'till it comes out.

STEP 4 - Remove the old oil 0-Ring which will probably be horrible and brittle, so don't even try to get it out without breaking it. Clean anything that looks dirty while you've got the chance, including the hole the distributor goes into and the part of the distributor that goes in the hole.

STEP 5 - apply a little clean oil to the O-Ring, check the direction of the rotor and wiggle the dizzy back into the head. Replace the 12mm bolts, check the alignment of your scratch mark and tighten up the bolts.

The end of the distributor has a tab which fits into a slot in the end of the camshaft, so it isn't very easy to get it wrong. I suspect you could get it 180 degrees out, which is why you should note the direction of the rotor before dis-assembly.

That's about it ... Have fun !

Cool, cheers Smotter.

I'll try and do this before she gets dyno'd with and without free-be air filter next week. Along with putting the original intake system back in

Mark

Sounds like you're going to be a busy little bee !!!

Hmmm, what with new club stuff as well!!

Mark

Yup ! Don't forget to take your camera so you can publish a fully illustrated report upon your return !