Well I am about to finish up my cooling work and I ran into something. I got smart and put a water hose in the filler neck in order to find any leaks. Water started to spray out of the water pump....



OKay well I know why that is....It is because I put my old pump on without a gasket and water was spraying out of the seal. So I ordered a gasket and was wondering how to get the old gasket off? It is stuck on the hole where the pump goes and I cant get it off for nothing. only pieces of it.



Water also started spraying out of the filler neck hole where the thermostat goes. Once again it is because I put the thermostat on without the o-ring. I ordered that too. Does another gasket go on the part of the neck that connects to the water pump housing or will the o-ring fix this?



Also....I ordered a thermostat from Autozone a few minutes ago. For some reason the sell the thermotat without the o-ring. The strangest part is that they only charged me $6!! Anybody order a thermostat from them?

 

well, i took apart my cooling system and i can't remember if there is a oring for the neck or not. i think it was just a small amount of silicone spead around to form a gasket. thermostats are cheap...from anywhere. you really should use a genuine mazda thermo of the 180 deg version tho. the faster youget the coolant flowin the better. good luck with it.



--andrew

 

There is a gasket that goes between the coolant fill and the front plate and one for the water pump Just use gasket maker it will hold up, and scrape off the old ones.

 

yeah just use a razor blade.

 

Yeah that is what I figured on the thermo....I am not sure if I want to make the hour drive to get the right gaskets. However maybe I will pick up a genuine mazda thermostat to be on the safe side.



Also...I tried to use a razer blade. It still doesnt come off!! Maybe I will try to file some of it off.

 

Sometimes they are really on there

 

spray some PB Blaster on it, and take ur time with the razor blade.. i wouldn't use a file..

 

I found that a thin, flexible putty knife works well when you need a handle to grab to really dig into the dead gasket.

 

Spray on gasket remover and a sharpened stiff putty knife. Works pretty good.

 

so basically anything you can get you hands on to scrape it off