Eric89GTU

I guess I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is, I took my car to a shop to get my front cover gasket replaced (to fix my oil leak), and they did it (no more oil leak!). The bad news is, now my car runs like crap.

I originally took her to the shop running fine, with the exception of the oil leak. Following their procedure (and $650 later), the leak was gone... but she didn't run the same at all. I decided to stop them from taking more of my money and see if I could track down the cause of the new problem myself...

The new problem is that my engine vibrates HORRIBLY. It shudders like crazy, jumping about an inch back and forth at idle (it's pretty violent). When I rev her up, the vibration continues, and I hear (or at least think I hear) some sort of odd soudn coming from my engine (not really identifiable... a deep grunty sorta vibration/griding soudn maybe?).

I checked the compression, got 100 psi front rotor, 90 psi rear rotor (is this difference normal?) Driving her home from the shop, I felt a normal amount of power, only with the new, distinctly bad vibrations (which consequently were transferred through the transmission, numbing my shfting hand on the drive home, anbd probably not doing my tranny or diff a lot of good). I figure my engine internally is at least okay, since the compression was alright.

Next I wanted to check spark... changed plugs and wires, and set timing into spec (@750 rpm), didn't fix anything. Timing light made it look like it was firing fine, so I assumed spark wasn't the problem (the plugs I changed out looked fine...didn't smell particularly of fuel nor looked white).

So then I checked the ECU ins/outs... all sensors that have anythign to do with A/F ratios seemed normal -- at least AFM, TPS, Intake Thermosensors and were all the same or better (more within spec) than they were the last time I checked them (I checked them months before taking her into the shop, when my car was running decently).

I changed the fuel filter two years ago (10k miles), and got the injectors serviced a year ago. I thought maybe the gas had gone bad (after sitting for 10 months), but adding 5 gallons of good fuel did nothing.

Now I'm stumped. The difference in my car's feel pre-work and post-work is drastic. I don't feel comfortable running my engine much, let alone driving it.

I read here (http://www.mazdatrix.com/faq/pulley.htm) that the torrington bearings can get pushed out of place if the pedal isn't pressed during removal of the front pulley... is it possible this is the cause of the problem?

Or is there somethign else I could possibly check to get my car running again? I'm running out of ideas here... please help if you can. At this point, I'm looking at taking her back to the shop, and telling them to look at the torrington bearings... If that -is- the problem, I'm sure they will foot the bill, and replace everythign fro free (seeing as their procedure was incorrect), but if it's not the problem, then that's another $600 of mine down the tubes for them to open her up and tell me I'm wrong. Any ideas on what I can check???

I miss my car.

Thanks,
Eric

BlackRx7

Sorry buddy I got lucky when replaceing mine, sound like the needle bearing have fallen out of place, which cause rotor slap, rotor rubbing against the side housing, can cause engine failur if not fixed soon, measure the hub protrusion, as it says in the hayes manual, also check the end play of the e-shaft

bcty

well they should take a look at it for you.. tell them they must have hit sumpthing.. u check all you vacume hoses and make sure they didnt hit any out.. maybe they hit sumpthing outta alignment?

relvinnian

Those ******* idiots.

hypntyz7

Yeah you really shouldnt drive it much like that. Grab the front pulley, and push/puill on it...if you can feel/see it move, they have misaligned some stuff inside there, and the job will have to be done over. This is called endplay. IT should be nearly non-measureable to the naked eye/hand.

IT is very easy to screw this job up if you are not familiar with what is inside the front cover, so theyre not necessarily idiots, unless they speciailze in rotaries. But, they should foot the bill to do it again.

http://mazdatrix.com/faq/pulley.htm

Eric89GTU

So there isn't anything else I should check before taking it back to them? Luckily the shop is only 1/2 mile from my house so I won't have to beat up my car too badly...

Thanks,
Eric

Eric89GTU

I talked to the shop owner, and he insisted that there was -no way- that the needle bearings were the problem, and I got the feeling that he would be of no help to me whatsoever. So this week I finally got around to taking my car apart. Off with the Airpump, alternator, P/S, A/C, intake tube (to make it easier), fluids drained, waterpump, crank angle sensor, metering oil pump. This is when I noticed something wrong.

I went to remove the pulleys, and that SOB had .5" of play (YES, .5", as opposed to the shop manual specified .0028"). HMMM. That could cause vibrations I thought...so i continue taking things off.

I look in my shop manual, and seeing the the next thing to come off -- the E-shaft lock bolt -- is next, I pushed in my clutch pedal with my unused toolbox jammed between it and the seat. Also seeing that the lock bolt is spec'ed at around 90 lb-ft, I braced to do some pushing. So I fully heaved my weight forward onto the wrench, only to find almost no resistence. The bolt was only torqued to about 20 lb-ft . .

Then I take off the front cover (DAMN those oil pan bolts were a pain -- I didnt have an engine lift, so I used the open-end of a wrench to slowly remove them. I found the best angle of attack was leaning over the front bumper down to the Front Cover/oilpan area. Got the front cover off and slid off the distributor drive gear, and slid the oil pump drive gear and counterweight forward to see the bearings. I checked to make sure they were in place, and they were. Turns out that wasn't the problem. I slid the counterweight and oilpump gear back and put the dist drive gear back, put the key back in and began re-assembly.

I put the front cover back on, bolted it in place, and then put the lock bolt on. This was done by torquing it down as much as possible (with the clutch still pushed in), until the pulleys had an almost indistinguishable amountn of play. Once I had it to this point, I released the clutch to hold the e-shaft in one position so I could turn the bolt. I ended up having to torque it all the way over, then try and grab-and-stop the e-shaft from moving while I flung the wrench back to the other side, because my grip was only strong enough to slow the returning of the e-shaft, not stop it. After a lot of elbow grease and wear on my hands, I got it on to around 90lb-ft.

So I put eveything back on, put P/S fluid back in (I leaked a lot of it), bled the P/S system, and replaced the oil and coolant. Fire her up...SHE DIES. Oh man. Revved up to aroudun 2000 then just died. Try starting her with 3/4 throttle, stays up around 5000 or 4000 (a rough 5000 or 4000... but NOT violently vibrating like before, but backfiring a lot). If I drop below 2000 or below 1/3 throttle, she dies. I poke aroudn my engine bay only to find that I didnt connect two intake hoses.

Fire her up WOW THATS NICE. Just like she should be, back to her old self. I HAVE MY CAR BAAAAAAAAACCCCCCKKKK. Running just as well as before, only now without an oil leak or vibrations or any of that crap.

So, here is what may have gone wrong. First, the bolt being to loose and causing too much play in and of itself could have caused the vibrations. However, I believe that they didn't key the front counterweight as well. That would explain why the bolt wasn't in all the way (when THEY went to put the bolt on, its screwing-in would be stopped by the key protruding, not by the shaft's end), and the resulting vibrations could loosen the bolt more (to 20 lb-ft). In any event, she runs now. I wasted about $600, but she runs.



EDIT: Oh, and FYI, when I went to measure the play originally as mentioned above, with all the belts on, the pulleys didn't want to move. To check to see if you have a ton of play, those belts may have to come off. Also, I don't feel any endplay now (I can't feel .0028" of movement), and I think that's how it is supposed to be. The car seems to like it anyway...

Thanks for all the help guys,
Eric

DaleClark

iTrader: (55)

That's interesting - I drove a car for about a year with the front bearings all messed up from improper installation, and the car ran and felt fine. Except for the front pulley moving forward about 10mm every time I pushed in the clutch pedal!

Regardless, glad it's better! Front cover jobs are the ABSOLUTE LEAST fun thing in the world to do - I've done at least 10 of 'em! Ack!

Dale

skyypilot

sound like the needle bearing have fallen out of place, which cause rotor slap, rotor rubbing against the side housing, can cause engine failur if not fixed soon, measure the hub protrusion, as it says in the hayes manual, also check the end play of the e-shaft