Hi guys, I took apart the front cover but when reassembling I noticed there is no slot for the thrust washer on the counterweight so it jut slides around, is this normal?

here's a pic

 

Yes

 

cool thanks, but just wondering how it even stays in place when the engine is spinning?

 

It goes around the thrust spacer and is all sandwiched in there.

Look at some of the writeups and videos of the front engine stack, it's pretty well documented. Take your time and put this all together properly, a mess up here means a TON of work to fix.

Dale

 

thanks for the info Dale!

 

Check out this link for an in depth explanation about what Dale alluded to....

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

 

Odd, are only some of the counterweights like this? Mine has a seat for the washer.

 

^ It looks to me like this one does too, the OP just did not center the washer over the hole when the picture was taken.

 

There seems to be some confusion about the thrust washer, it does fit into the seat in the back of the front counterweight. I have received 2 different engines recently that failed due to having 2 thrust washers installed which caused front bearing failure.

When the washer is installed in the counterweight it looks flush.

The thrust plate and thrust bearings are aligned by the end spacer, not the thrust washer.

If I had to guess from the above pic, it is a FD thrust washer and a FC counterweight, but I would need better pictures to be sure.

 

That looks like it since the FC washer is smaller, though the one in the picture seems big even for the FD counterweight.

 

Banzai nailed it...that CW isn't FD3S.

 

Deff looks wrong to me from the pics. Look slike you have some mismatched parts. What flywheel is on that motor?

 

That's strange, I believe I took it apart like that and I've been tracking the engine like this since I first got the car 4 years ago. Could it be I misplaced something? I keep all my parts in ziplock bags when I take things apart so it's unlikely.

 

The washer definitely sits in a groove, you can clearly see in the pic you posted where its supposed to sit. It's mismatched parts. You got something mixed up.

thewird

 

The cw in the pic has no grooves which is the problem, I was thinking maybe the thrust spacer which sticks above the Torrington bearing would center it. Also I was recording the disassembly and in the video I could see the thrust washer sitting under the cw and not flush with it, unfortunately I stopped recording when I was pulling the stack apart.

 

Thanks everyone for their input!

 

or some chucklehead didn't have an FD front CW and machined off the lip from an S5 front CW... if so it still wouldn't center properly.

in the picture you can see the beginning of the bevel which looks like an S5 front CW due to the narrower dimensions. the builder may have grabbed the wrong CW and laid the thrust washer on the bevel which would crush the stack and deform the thrust washer.

or you, as the builder grabbed the wrong CW which would explain the binding it would experience when rotating the engine.

ahh screw it, a picture sais a thousand words. here you go:



notice how thick the wall is in the first picture of the thread compared to this picture, definitely an S4 or S5 counterweight from an FC engine but with an FD/S6 thrust washer.

 

Then there's the obvious consequence of using a mismatched CW without dynamic balancing. Why bother machining the seat to fit the wrong washer?

 

hardly enough weight to throw the engine that far out of balance, the rotors usually are further out by default than that small bit of centrifugal mass removed. but as mentioned the thrust washer wouldn't center any longer and not able to do its intended job anyways.

i believe it was just an engine "built on a friday afternoon" and someone wasn't paying attention at all.

S5 front counterweights actually are identical to S6 with the exception of the thrust washer diameter along with the diameter of the whole thrust washer stack. S6 has approximately 50% larger thrust bearings over the S5 CW.

i don't see any odd wear patterns in the picture so i am just going to assume that the OP was the builder here and picked up the wrong front counterweight for his engine and found an issue while checking endplay.