Broken bolts in pulley boss
 

The happened a few weeks ago.
No warning signs, I was driving through a parking lot going less than 5 mph than . . . noise . . . more noise . . . than engine stopped. (all in less than 20 seconds).

My inspection show both belts and the drive pulleys had fallen off, all 4 bolts holding the drive pulleys had broken off. It doesn’t look like anything else is damaged, thank god I was going through a parking lot and not 80 on the highway.

My question is, how to approach this? Drilling the bolts out is going to be tough. Remove the 19mm main bolt to free the pulley boss so I can work on it out of the car?
The issue is to keep the thrust bearing in place so can remove the 19 mm main bolt. Can this be done while the engine is in the car?

I am in Chicago, if anyone can offer any help I will forever in your debt.

It can be done. I did it because my Unorthodox pulley was wobbling, and I was putting the stock one back to see if it wobbled too.

What I did was removed the inspection plate, and stuck a crowbar in there. Then I hooked a ratcheting tie-down to the rear LCA and the hook end of the crow bar, and tightened that down as much as I could. I got that idea from searching on here.

I've put almost 1k miles on it so far, and everything's running great, so I'm pretty sure it worked fine.

Edit: I also need to wedge something in the pressure plate, to keep it from rotating. I used a chisel.

Will this work?
 

I found this on a older post . . .

When I bought my car, my front oil seal was bad. No big thing I thought since it was just held in by ONE bolt...connected to the eccentric shaft.

Either way, I took all that crap out of there(radiator, ic, etc.) and went into the car and pushed down the clutch, while Dragon went in and hit the bolt with an impact gun.


Will holding down the clutch stop the hub from spinning?

Man, you've got a tough one there.

The front pulley bolt is by far the HARDEST bolt to remove on the car. It's torqued to like 100ish foot pounds, but the whole length of the bolt is slathered in Loctite. Most impact guns won't budge it, you have to use a big ol' breaker bar.

I would seriously give a solid try to remove the broken bolts from the hub first. If you can get them out of there, you'll be way ahead of the game.

If that isn't happening, prepare for a big job.

First, you have to break that front pulley nut loose. We're talking a BIG breaker bar. Do some searching, there are many tricks to it. I've done the trick with putting the car in gear and the parking brake on to keep the motor from turning. Some have rested the breaker bar against the frame rail and bumped the starter. Regardless, it's going to be hard.

Once it's broken loose, I'm not sure what the best way is to remove the pulley. On the FC you can push the clutch in to put pressure on the stack to keep it in place. The FD uses a pull type clutch, so it will pull the stack backwards, which isn't what you want. I think the trick of a prybar against the clutch/flywheel pushing the stack towards the front of the car might work.

When reinstalling the pulley bolt, you have to coat the threads in Loctite and put RTV around the flat head of the bolt. Make sure to wire wheel clean the bolt up first so it's good and spotless.

Also, you should really replace the crank angle sensor ring. It has to be PERFECTLY straight to be accurate, and the chances it was bent from coming off are high. Should be pretty cheap used.

Oh, and to answer your question, holding down the clutch won't keep it from spinning. If this was true, the engine would stop running when you pushed the clutch down :).

Dale

I'd suggest just biting the bullet and pulling the engine. Put it on stand so you can turn it straight up. Change out the pulley and do any other maintenance while the engine is out (fuel injector cleaning, coolant/fuel/vacuum hose replacement, motor mounts, etc).

This is a tough one
 

I did all the major maintenance, upgrade, and re-builded the motor on spring 08, the car was running great before this happen.

I don't think I have the skill to pull this one off, time to give a shop a call. And hopefully they can keep the thrust bearing in place, so we don't have to remove the front cover.

I need some luck here.

From what I hear, holding down the clutch will not work on 3rd gens. Mazdatrix says to with fc, fd's you have to wedge something in there to forse it forward.

Here's their FAQ about it: http://mazdatrix.com/faq/pulley.htm

And that bolt was a b itch to get off. I used a 1/2" drive breaker bar with about an extra foot and a half of cheater bar. I think the torque specs from the FSM were like 180-200 ft-lbs plus loc-tite like DaleClark said.

I think you're making the right call having a shop do it. Find a GOOD ROTARY SHOP to do the work, someone that will take their time and do the job right. If they're sharp, they should be able to fix your car up relatively quickly.

Again, make SURE you've got good parts to go back on the car. A good used crank trigger ring, a good used pulley hub, 4 new 10mm bolts to hold the pullies to the hub, etc. Also a good idea to get one of the eccentric shaft oil bypass plugs unless that's already been done.

If you have an aluminum underdrive pulley, I'd carefully inspect it to make sure it's useable.

Dale

Thanks bencb44
 

That Mazdatrix page is going to be a big help.

Just want to clarify my early post about doing the rebuild, I didn't rebuild the motor myself, I had it done by a shop.:)

I could get that done while in the car with NO problems. Forget about the E-shaft bolt and compressing the stack, pull the IC and rad out. Remove the undercover. Work from above and below and drill out the 6mm bolts with an angled drill. The whole job hinges on center punching each broken bolt. Dremel each broken bolt flat before center punching. Then drill them thru with a 3/16" bit. Using the 4 flute easy out, work the stud back and forth until each comes out.

Find out root cause of all 4 bolts breaking. Never have I seen this happen before.


Later