Spent lunch with the marketing department's Mavica, thought you'd all be
interested to see a common failure mode in high mileage rotaries.

This one is a 160,000 mile 1990 turbo engine.

This is the front housing, BTW

Mike Harrington

That is common around 1988 1989 as I recall. It is a core shift or casting
defect. It happened right after they moved the O-ring groove
from the rotor housing to the end housings. Not enough meat around there.
I think Mazda changed the patterns later to fix this problem.
Bruce Turrentine says even some new end housings have this
problem right from the get go.

Paul Lamar

Ken Powell wrote:

I had this problem in exactly the same location.  I brazed it up and put it back together after giving all the insides a good cleaning and then sold the car - I even guaranteed it for 1 year and told the guy what I had done.  I don't think he had a clue.  Anyway, I know that the car ran for at least 2 years with this cludged up repair but has since disappeared.  I wonder if the motor died, the car was wrecked, guy moved, etc???

Ken Powell
kenpowell@aristotle.net
 

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