oil pedestal removal gone wrong!
 

Having a bad night now.... attempted to take off my oil pedestal to replace it with sakebomb's version and add my temp and pressure sensors to it ended in failure...The gods of misfortune were looking upon me. After worm i stopped to buy the 23mm socket I needed
Raced home and went straight for the garage. Took the elbow and oil filter, moved my flexfuel sensor/lines out the way to make room for the socket wrench.. Now I tried to loosen this bolt but it wasn't budging, gave it a spray with pb blaster and tried again, nope, again I spray with pb but this time I put a small pipe on the wrench to give me more leverage & gave it a go..... ""snap"" I feel & hear, as I look to see that the bolt didn't come lose.... The oem pedestal snapped in half leaving the 2 bolts still holding the bottom half while the other half is still bolted onto the oil hardline...

Stupid me then tries to hold down the pedestal with one hand and loosen it with the other , I thought I saw the socket move slightly, so I went to look but it was the hard line bending up :bgfuk: .... I spray it again, and this time tried to heat it up a little with a heat gun. Still the lil fcuker doesn't want to move.. I checked the instructions I got from sbg about the removal of the oem to see if maybe it said that it was a reverse type banjo bolt or something but no..... so atm I'm not to sure what to do here..

Not really sure how you did that. You could try to heat the 23mm banjo bolt but have to be really careful and have a fire extinguisher handy in case the oil inside catches. Its a tight fit in there but you may also be able to get an impact on there if you pull the line up and use a swivel. If you need an extra pedestal I have a bunch, just cover shipping.

is there any way to get the pedestal off with the hardline ON it then use an impact on the banjo bolt?

Ouch. In order to get that hardline off you need to unbolt the AC compressor mount I believe >

yea it does have another mounting tab that is behind the AC/PS bracket on the block.

you may can get it off by cutting that, but then you would have a jiggly line.

if your not going with new AN hoses for the oil cooler, i believe i should have some OEM hardlines from 2 JDM motorsets that i have torn down.

Quoting Tommy Boy: "WHAT YOU DO?!?!?!?!"

I suggest you put the filter back on for some leverage and do all of the above already mentioned. GL.

I'm not sure how crispeed hooked all this up. Because I gave him the duel setrab oil coolers and mount for them along with the mocal thermostat but he told me he doesn't run a thermostat in the motors he builds plus it's hot enough in florida from what I was told....... figuring speed has much more knowledge and has built lots more motors then me so I just agreed with it... the line is already a little jiggly so maybe it's broken off already?? What would I have to do to change it to a AN hose or would it be better to just grab another oem hardline and put that in



Thanks for the offer of the pedestal but I have the sakebomb garage one j was swapping too.

I already tried heating it with a heat gun, with no luck. I will be buying a swivel on my way home later tonight to give that a try.

I couldn't see so well but didn't see what the hardline ended up going into after it went down to the bottom and front of the motor, hope I'm not to tired after work to work on her again.

Usually caused by some one not properly torquing down parts to Mazda values.
Did something similar with the pedestal on a rebuilt engine also in a FD.
Broke the aluminum right where the oil line bolts in.

Not your fault but the installer of the engine into the car.

Wow. Well the stock pedestal is destroyed so if you can't get an impact gun on the bolt you can be pretty rough with what's left. You could cut through the protruding part and through the banjo bolt which would free up the line. Obviously you will need to replace the banjo bolt if you do that and be careful not to get any metal shavings in the remains of the housing. Good luck!

This is a timely thread as I am also trying to remove said 23mm bolt to install a new cooler line. I have yanked on it with a spanner and hit the spanner with a mallet and realized something else is going to break before this comes loose - queue this thread.

Can you remove the pedestal without removing this 23mm bolt? All I can see is the two bolts with no heads as in OPs pic. I have it loose under the aircon (its removed) so would have play in the line and can remove the other end anyway.
Rattle gun seems the only way...?

EDIT: ok I can see the nuts are below for the pedestal. Those are going to be impossible to get to...

^^^ you can double wrench a 24mm or something similar onto the back open end of the 23mm wrench that has the closed end seated on the banjo bolt. You need a breaker bar effect (think leverage), whacking things with a mallet won't do much.

You can get to the 10mm nuts underneath, have to get creative with a stubby wrench and/or 1/4 inch ratchet with swivel head socket and varying extensions.

Forgot about this thread.. I ended up getting it off by tieing the pedestal down with rope (yes rope) and just was going ham saying if I break it, I break it. Got the 23mm on there and was also pressing down with my hand, it finally broke free and I ended up getting it off... the 10mm nuts were easier to take off than the 23mm.. granted the one towards the fire wall was just a tad harder because of the angle... sake bombs went on without a hitch and no leaks. Got my 2 new sensors on there.. just have to bring it to the tuner to hook them up to the ecu

good news! pic of the carnage?

So what's the moral of the story here?
... break the two 10mm bolts loose (then retighten slightly) before going to town on the 23mm banjo? Or....? Going to do this to mine soon, don't want to get stuck in that position :fingersx:

It's pure bad luck that the banjo bolt was stuck to the point that it was seized. Really this is a pretty uncommon thing.

Use a 23mm wrench to break loose and remove the banjo bolt, then do the 2 10mm nuts holding the pedestal to the engine. I would probably leave the oil filter on during this process, I think it adds some rigidity to the structure. I've always had it on when removing that banjo bolt, never had a problem.

Dale

Thank you, Dale.
Will report back if there's anything new to add to this thread!

What did you guys use to get the 10mm off closest to the firewall (on the pedestal). Tried a couple different angles and couldn't get good leverage. May grab a crowsfoot

From my 2016 post up above: "You can get to the 10mm nuts underneath, have to get creative with a stubby wrench and/or 1/4 inch ratchet with swivel head socket and varying extensions."

Thanks. I'll give it another shot. Only nut holding me back at this point.

I removed the oil pressure sensor and disconnected the harness connector for the coolant gauge sender to make more room to work in that area, although I'm not sure if that was because of those 10mm nuts or something else during the project. Be sure to get the big banjo bolt loose before removing the 10mm nuts, you don't want to do that in the wrong order.

​​​​​​​thank you. I got the banjo bolt loose, took some elbow grease to break it free. I just need to get the one 10mm next to the firewall out and ill be good to go. Got the elbow out of the way, didn't disconnect much else but I'll see what else I may have to move if I don't have any luck. Thanks again

In the past I've been able to get to them from underneath with a low profile 10mm 1/4 swivel socket, some long extensions, and bright light to see up through the subframe. coming in next to the trans bell housing :beerchug:

Thanks.. i picked up another extension to try this, also a ratcheting stubby.

Ratcheting 10mm stubby did the trick..