Just pull back and forth with your hands. Using a prybar just measures the amount of deflection you can put into the thrust plate, not endplay. Endplay should take almost no force to move back and forth.

 

Don't reef on the bar. Just a moderate tug. That's the procedure Mazda outlines in their factory service manual...You can tell if you are pulling too hard because you'll initially see the dial indicator jump up to your endplay reading, then move up smoothly to some other value. If you see this behaviour, then you are pulling too hard.

 

well, just by pulling I am not able to get any movement. My stuff must be messed up, but I am not seeing any problems. I will let you know if I find a bunch of metal when I change my oil today or tomorrow.

I hope to not be slowly killing the engine, that would suck... I am not sure it is worth cracking open the front cover to fix it, if it is not APPEARING to do any damage yet.

 

You need a dial indicator to check this. You cannot feel any movement with just your hands, we are talking 0.002" of play here!

 

Ok. I don't have one (yet).

I just did my oil change and didn't see anything, besides oil in the old oil. I am hoping this is an indicator that all is well, and that I got lucky.

 

Reality sucks

Gotta love Seans attention to detail.