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The only thing that doesn’t add up with a warped rotor story is the fact that the vibrations started right after the freshly machined rotors were put on the car, so they couldn’t have warped immediately.
If you watch the video I posted, they had the same issue with brand new rotors.
I will put new rotors in the end, however I don’t want to have the same issue again.
On some cars (almost all I have seen) sensors which turn the fans on and off are located inside the radiator, and not on the engine itself. Should the air get into the system, those sensors can stay cool enough not to turn the fans on. The gauge on your dash is inside the engine however, and it shows the actual temperature of the engine.
There are two ways you can try to get around this, one would be to run the heater all the time, another would be to bypass the sensors and make the fans run all the time the ignition is turned on, however if the headgasket leak is too bad, neither will help fix the problem.
On some cars (almost all I have seen) sensors which turn the fans on and off are located inside the radiator, and not on the engine itself. Should the air get into the system, those sensors can stay cool enough not to turn the fans on. The gauge on your dash is inside the engine however, and it shows the actual temperature of the engine.
There are two ways you can try to get around this, one would be to run the heater all the time, another would be to bypass the sensors and make the fans run all the time the ignition is turned on, however if the headgasket leak is too bad, neither will help fix the problem.
As far as the “incident” is concerned all damage that was obvious was fixed right away, including the oil pan and a big metal subframe (my mechanic called it a “bridge”) oil pan, parts of the exhaust, and a coolant pipe which was ruined, and all those parts came off a wrecked mazda 323 diesel (the same car mechanically) that was rear ended, only thing I didn’t fix so far is the bent fuel tank (that’s another issue with the fuel gauge not going under 1/4), but I couldn’t replace that given that one on the junked mazda was useless.
As far as power steering issues, they started way before the “accident”, six months after I bought the car. When I picked the car up, power steering fluid was bright pink, and everything worked fine (I did buy the car from my uncle who maintained it very well since he used it to travel to Russia every two months, a 2500KM journey), but after a couple of longer road trips, power steering fluid became dirty (almost black) and had a burnt smell. After that I changed the fluid in the reservoir, but haven’t really flushed the system, and the problem was gone. Fast forward to a month ago, the fluid had changed it’s color again, but this time I removed the return hose, and flushed the entire system. Then I had this road trip on monday, and the problem came back again, only the fluid isn’t as bad looking as it used to be before the change. My guess is that something causes the fluid to overheat, or maybe I am using the wrong type of fluid (I use what the manual calls for and that’s ATF 3), or should I just leave it alone? I am fearing the rack might develop some issues from being exposed to dirty fluid for long period of time.
As far as the coolant loss issue, it was present since the day I bought the car, but not as severe. Liter of anti freeze was required every month or so. Then the thermostat failed closed on labor day weekend (1st of may here) and I had to remove it at the time, for that whole summer the car worked fine without the thermostat, and in september I put new one in when i changed the oil. Since the thermostat failure the car had been loosing a liter of coolant a week. When I removed the old one, and put the new one back in, I noticed both the top and bottom radiator hoses had cracks and were old. Only on my last oil change did I notice small amount of (red) coolant leaking from the bottom of the radiator, given that there is also residue there, I assume the radiator had been leaking for a while, whether it was damaged in the accident I am not sure, but given that the car had leaked coolant from day one, I don’t think so. Could the problem be just the bad hoses, or should I be looking for a new radiator as well? Also can a junkyard unit be any good, given that quality of some aftermarket parts isn’t up to the job?
As far as the “incident” is concerned all damage that was obvious was fixed right away, including the oil pan and a big metal subframe (my mechanic called it a “bridge”) oil pan, parts of the exhaust, and a coolant pipe which was ruined, and all those parts came off a wrecked mazda 323 diesel (the same car mechanically) that was rear ended, only thing I didn’t fix so far is the bent fuel tank (that’s another issue with the fuel gauge not going under 1/4), but I couldn’t replace that given that one on the junked mazda was useless.
As far as power steering issues, they started way before the “accident”, six months after I bought the car. When I picked the car up, power steering fluid was bright pink, and everything worked fine (I did buy the car from my uncle who maintained it very well since he used it to travel to Russia every two months, a 2500KM journey), but after a couple of longer road trips, power steering fluid became dirty (almost black) and had a burnt smell. After that I changed the fluid in the reservoir, but haven’t really flushed the system, and the problem was gone. Fast forward to a month ago, the fluid had changed it’s color again, but this time I removed the return hose, and flushed the entire system. Then I had this road trip on monday, and the problem came back again, only the fluid isn’t as bad looking as it used to be before the change. My guess is that something causes the fluid to overheat, or maybe I am using the wrong type of fluid (I use what the manual calls for and that’s ATF 3), or should I just leave it alone? I am fearing the rack might develop some issues from being exposed to dirty fluid for long period of time.
As far as the coolant loss issue, it was present since the day I bought the car, but not as severe. Liter of anti freeze was required every month or so. Then the thermostat failed closed on labor day weekend (1st of may here) and I had to remove it at the time, for that whole summer the car worked fine without the thermostat, and in september I put new one in when i changed the oil. Since the thermostat failure the car had been loosing a liter of coolant a week. When I removed the old one, and put the new one back in, I noticed both the top and bottom radiator hoses had cracks and were old. Only on my last oil change did I notice small amount of (red) coolant leaking from the bottom of the radiator, given that there is also residue there, I assume the radiator had been leaking for a while, whether it was damaged in the accident I am not sure, but given that the car had leaked coolant from day one, I don’t think so. Could the problem be just the bad hoses, or should I be looking for a new radiator as well? Also can a junkyard unit be any good, given that quality of some aftermarket parts isn’t up to the job?
After a long drive, around 1000 KM, the power steering fluid has changed it’s color to brown from bright pink which I put in last month. Given that I was driving on hilly roads, I noticed that on slow sections with lots of bends (and a lot of steering lock to lock) the pump (or some other part of the system) had developed a high pitch squealing noise when turning the wheel, also I could smell strong smell of burned ATF fluid (the same smell when I changed the fluid/open the power steering cap), even with the fan turned off, and windows up, and it was also a rather cold day (around 6 degrees Celsius).
After I came home, the next day I took a look at the power steering dipstick and saw brown fluid. Could this be an indication of overheat or stress? The fluid also smelled bad (unlike the new one I put in a month ago), but the squeal is gone.
Couple of days ago I changed the engine oil (not relevant to this problem) and looked underneath the bumper, saw two important things, one was a radiator leak at the seam where aluminium meets plastic, and a rather small cooler for the power steering system, which is just one pipe and no fins. Can I improve it’s cooling capability if I weld thin aluminium plates to the pipes (I have a friend with good welding skills) so that the power steering can cool more efficiently? Also regarding the radiator leak, my mechanic who changed the oil advised me to buy liquid “Liqui Moly” radiator sealant (which I did) but I haven’t put it in yet because he said it need to be put in before a longer journey for the sealant to be effective, and I will be making another almost 1000KM trip in the near future, but am fearful of troubles with the cooling system should I put that sealer in. Should I put that sealer in, and are there any bad side effects? The car has been loosing a liter of coolant every week.
After a long drive, around 1000 KM, the power steering fluid has changed it’s color to brown from bright pink which I put in last month. Given that I was driving on hilly roads, I noticed that on slow sections with lots of bends (and a lot of steering lock to lock) the pump (or some other part of the system) had developed a high pitch squealing noise when turning the wheel, also I could smell strong smell of burned ATF fluid (the same smell when I changed the fluid/open the power steering cap), even with the fan turned off, and windows up, and it was also a rather cold day (around 6 degrees Celsius).
After I came home, the next day I took a look at the power steering dipstick and saw brown fluid. Could this be an indication of overheat or stress? The fluid also smelled bad (unlike the new one I put in a month ago), but the squeal is gone.
Couple of days ago I changed the engine oil (not relevant to this problem) and looked underneath the bumper, saw two important things, one was a radiator leak at the seam where aluminium meets plastic, and a rather small cooler for the power steering system, which is just one pipe and no fins. Can I improve it’s cooling capability if I weld thin aluminium plates to the pipes (I have a friend with good welding skills) so that the power steering can cool more efficiently? Also regarding the radiator leak, my mechanic who changed the oil advised me to buy liquid “Liqui Moly” radiator sealant (which I did) but I haven’t put it in yet because he said it need to be put in before a longer journey for the sealant to be effective, and I will be making another almost 1000KM trip in the near future, but am fearful of troubles with the cooling system should I put that sealer in. Should I put that sealer in, and are there any bad side effects? The car has been loosing a liter of coolant every week.
The first place I would look for when having problems with LPG system is cooling system.
I used to have (until I bought my mazda in 2012) a 1989 Yugo with LPG conversion (my dad converted it 7 years before I got the car), and having driven almost 100.000km on LPG I learned a couple of things about it.
There are two types of systems (main), one which feeds the propane into the intake manifold (good for older non fuel injected cars), and injected one, which is either single port injected or multi port injected (your one is most likely this one). If a fuel injected car is converted using the first method, it’s unreliable, poor on gas, can cause an explosion and will not pass state inspection (at least in Serbia), if your car is fuel injected, and all you have of LPG installation in a small hose going into the intake, that’s your problem. Older systems can be adjusted with two knobs on the evaporator, one controls the idle, the other (bigger one) controls the main mixture, on EFI cars, LPG ecu does that. You can try to manually adjust your system to some rough parameters which would be better than having the system way rich or lean. You would first adjust the big knob so the car can rev nicely (linearly, so it doesn’t loose grunt at high revs), and then adjusting the idle (smaller) knob (always with headlights on, older LPG systems are very sensitive to engine load at idle). Last comes the fine tune, for which you will need two people, one person will go and look at exhaust fumes, while the other will turn the knobs very slightly, what you are looking for is constant flow of gases, not poof,poof,poof kind of thing. If you can I would urge you to take the care to LPG system service station, because they have equipment which measures CO2 coming out of the tailpipe and can tune the system to the nearest millimeter, and can also clue you in if your engine is burning oil.
Another thing which is very important is a good cooling system, because LPG as it’s name stands for is Liquified Petroleum Gas, which is stored at high pressure in liquid condition, so it has to evaporate in order to be used by your engine. Evaporation is a process which causes cooling, and also needs enough heat in order to be efficient. So if your car is low on coolant, the first thing to suffer is the evaporator, which is consequently the highest in the system. When that happens, the evaporator cools down (and can even freeze, sometimes also crack), and evaporation process doesn’t happen at full efficiency, resulting in Liquid propane entering your engine/intake manifold, causing the car to run very rich. So make sure your thermostat works (especially in winter), your system is at proper water level, and that the coolant is clean and flows freely throughout the system. When installing LPG people usually tap into the heater hoses, so a bad (clogged) heater core can cause issues with proper flow to the evaporator.
Also the evaporator has a membrane inside it which is essential for good and efficient operation, and gets old dirty and brittle over time, around 50.000km and has to be changed by a professional, good thing is it costs as much as a regular air filter. Another very important part is the fuel filter which will clog up with metal particles that come off inside the tank.
Hope I helped a little, if you have any questions feel free to ask.
The first place I would look for when having problems with LPG system is cooling system.
I used to have (until I bought my mazda in 2012) a 1989 Yugo with LPG conversion (my dad converted it 7 years before I got the car), and having driven almost 100.000km on LPG I learned a couple of things about it.
There are two types of systems (main), one which feeds the propane into the intake manifold (good for older non fuel injected cars), and injected one, which is either single port injected or multi port injected (your one is most likely this one). If a fuel injected car is converted using the first method, it’s unreliable, poor on gas, can cause an explosion and will not pass state inspection (at least in Serbia), if your car is fuel injected, and all you have of LPG installation in a small hose going into the intake, that’s your problem. Older systems can be adjusted with two knobs on the evaporator, one controls the idle, the other (bigger one) controls the main mixture, on EFI cars, LPG ecu does that. You can try to manually adjust your system to some rough parameters which would be better than having the system way rich or lean. You would first adjust the big knob so the car can rev nicely (linearly, so it doesn’t loose grunt at high revs), and then adjusting the idle (smaller) knob (always with headlights on, older LPG systems are very sensitive to engine load at idle). Last comes the fine tune, for which you will need two people, one person will go and look at exhaust fumes, while the other will turn the knobs very slightly, what you are looking for is constant flow of gases, not poof,poof,poof kind of thing. If you can I would urge you to take the care to LPG system service station, because they have equipment which measures CO2 coming out of the tailpipe and can tune the system to the nearest millimeter, and can also clue you in if your engine is burning oil.
Another thing which is very important is a good cooling system, because LPG as it’s name stands for is Liquified Petroleum Gas, which is stored at high pressure in liquid condition, so it has to evaporate in order to be used by your engine. Evaporation is a process which causes cooling, and also needs enough heat in order to be efficient. So if your car is low on coolant, the first thing to suffer is the evaporator, which is consequently the highest in the system. When that happens, the evaporator cools down (and can even freeze, sometimes also crack), and evaporation process doesn’t happen at full efficiency, resulting in Liquid propane entering your engine/intake manifold, causing the car to run very rich. So make sure your thermostat works (especially in winter), your system is at proper water level, and that the coolant is clean and flows freely throughout the system. When installing LPG people usually tap into the heater hoses, so a bad (clogged) heater core can cause issues with proper flow to the evaporator.
Also the evaporator has a membrane inside it which is essential for good and efficient operation, and gets old dirty and brittle over time, around 50.000km and has to be changed by a professional, good thing is it costs as much as a regular air filter. Another very important part is the fuel filter which will clog up with metal particles that come off inside the tank.
Hope I helped a little, if you have any questions feel free to ask.
Given that my friend has a lift, and after having the car in the air several times, i still cannot be sure where the noise comes from, either where linkage meets the transmission or inside it, but given that it’s been more than two months after the wreck and transmission shifts as good as it ever has, is precise and doesn’t pop out of gear, I assume it’s nothing serious. Being that new linkage is impossible to find and junkyard units can be faulty as well, I will not touch anything until I a problem appears.
Another thing, does power steering fluid that smells burnt and looks really black mean a failing pump? Changed the fluid three times (problem was present since I bought the car), but the smell and color would come back after a couple months, also after a long (motorway) journey the power steering would squeal when I turn the steering wheel, the noise is quieter when the car cools down but doesn’t go away until I change the fluid, which comes out as really black. Car has 310,000 KMs on the clock.
Given that my friend has a lift, and after having the car in the air several times, i still cannot be sure where the noise comes from, either where linkage meets the transmission or inside it, but given that it’s been more than two months after the wreck and transmission shifts as good as it ever has, is precise and doesn’t pop out of gear, I assume it’s nothing serious. Being that new linkage is impossible to find and junkyard units can be faulty as well, I will not touch anything until I a problem appears.
Another thing, does power steering fluid that smells burnt and looks really black mean a failing pump? Changed the fluid three times (problem was present since I bought the car), but the smell and color would come back after a couple months, also after a long (motorway) journey the power steering would squeal when I turn the steering wheel, the noise is quieter when the car cools down but doesn’t go away until I change the fluid, which comes out as really black. Car has 310,000 KMs on the clock.