99rs

I did end up tightening the cooler fittings a little bit.






I did not make those red and blue marks. They came on the hoses.





Getting to that lower radiator/condenser bolt was again quite tricky. This time worse since you had to make sure it wasn’t cross threading.

99rs

Got a new belt.




Finagle your fan assembly in.


The new big radiator hoses also have those markings on them.




New overflow coolant hoses.


Unlike the radiator the overflow is reinforced with an aluminium insert.

99rs

Overflow now connected to radiator.


Rad support getting ready to go back in.


…and begin to fill the coolant. This is where the ***** show began.


I followed the procedure.


Overfilled it a bit but it kept draining on me.


..at which point I finally heard it…the coolant hitting the ground! Did anyone catch what I did wrong? I contemplated for a long time before I finally bit the bullet and decided it all had to come apart again. Let me tell you the second time of this coming off I had done in a few hours!

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I’ll get back to what the problem was shortly. For now I switched to doing the back bumper supports. The “points” of my bumper where it met the quarter panels was sticking out.



Corner coming off in the red arrow location.


To be fair it didn’t actually look too bad but it must have been just enough to not let it hold.




That black bar is the proximity key sensor. My car doesn’t have the rear pre collision thing (only the front).


The inner fender design is quite poor. It traps dirt behind the liner and against the metal. I found some surface rust.

99rs

I put that rust converter on, then rust primer, and then painted it


And I do mean it was surface rust. I didn’t even need sand paper; the green scotch pad was enough.


My white vertical support bracket was broken. I suspect the car got bumped in the rear before.


I bought all new OEM hardware. Probably a waste of money.




Touch up any bare spots now while everything is clean.

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Everything back on.




These neon ones are important as it creates a separation between the rubbing plastics and the metal. Refer to any old Mazda3 for an example of how not to do this.




I replaced these foam pieces.

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While I was in the area I also dropped the rear undertray. I was getting a bunch of annoying noise from it and now I can see why.



Cleaned everything up and installed the rear bumper. Job done.

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My front brakes were pulsing when I pushed the brakes so I changed those over. Very easy job on this car. I bought OEM rotors but aftermarket pads and sensors. The sensors show that they’re different for left to right but they’re not; only the spring holder thing is different.



This is a huge wheel well.







Only the sensor spring holder is different.

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While I was in there I inspected the control arms. The bushings are kaput.




Pads were low enough but the sensor didn’t burn through yet.






New rotor.

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I wish I had a bead blaster to clean up those heat shields more easily.


I used the OEM shims with the new brake pads. I have no squeals.




Old rotor.

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Now for the valley plate again. I pulled the intake manifold back off in record time. When I took it off I confirmed the repair didn’t hold.



I didn’t disconnect any of the heater core hoses and such but instead just moved everything out of the way as best I could.


I cleaned up and started pouring coolant in again to see where the leak was coming from.


To my surprise it wasn’t the valley plate but instead the coolant tube in between! I ended up rolling the o-ring when I first installed it. The instructions even said to make sure this didn’t happen lol. I can only blame shoddy labour.


In the top left of the picture below you can see the o-ring not sitting in its groove.



In the video below I pour coolant into the overflow. And after some time you can see it’s simply pouring out past the o-ring.

99rs

Although you’d think this is bad, knowing where the problem is-is a huge win.

Start cleaning it all up again.





I got my template out from the recycle bin and started again.


..confirmed it’s the o-ring.

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The original gray sealant came off like nothing. This new black one was such a pain to get off. It balled up into pieces instead of coming off.





Get the bolts clean again.





All clean.




I bought 2 new o-rings.

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When I was going to test fit it I did it again lol. I then decided to use proper o-ring grease instead of just wetting them with coolant.


Fully installed and I now confirmed no more leaks prior to putting the manifold back on.


Seated properly and you can’t see the o-ring which is good.




Start on re-assembly.

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It was still fighting me on re-assembly. One of the manifold captive nuts dropped down into the plastic housing. It took a long time to fish it back out to the point where you see it below.






Now on the home stretch. I did a few odds and sods jobs.

I adjusted the parking brake. The previous owner changed the rear brakes and rotors but I didn’t think it was possible to do such a poor job. The e-brake didn’t work at all (couldn’t even hold the car on a driveway). I adjusted it and now it works perfect. They also didn’t put the rubber grommets back in for the adjustment. Just sloppy.







I re-painted some front bumper air ducts as they had some overspray on them.