ok..just undid the front eccentric bolt, and now there's an audible *thunk* when the shaft moves its 1/8th of an inch or so back and forth.

is there something wrong? does it need more torque on the front shaft bolt? (i put it back on, still the same amount of play) it didnt seem to do this before i undid that front bolt...

 

Did you block the clutch pedal in the depressed position before you undid the bolt?

 

engine out of car when i undid it.

 

With what you have said here is a very good GUESS at what happened.

Behind the bolt you too out there is a needle bearing & one or two thrust washers. When the bolt is taken out with the e-shaft horizontal like the position the motor is when it's in the car the thrust washer & needle bearing slips forward on the e-shaft & drops down on a smaller diameter of the e-shaft. When you take it apart to & reassemble look at ALL the part svery close because when you tightened the bolt you could have gougded/screwed up the parts.

If you try a workshop manual or enter the mazdatrix site there is a workup on the issue I described so that the needle bearing & thrust washer don't drop dpwn on the smaller diameter.

 

You now have to remove the front cover in order to fix the problem. This can be done in the vehicle.

 

If the engine is out, fix it now. It is not easy to remove a front cover or even the oil pan while the engine is in the car. Yes it can be done but the odds of you getting it to not leak when you reassemble it are much higher than if you just fix it while the engine is out. I had the thrust bearing fall off like that once and to save time I removed the engine to fix it. It's not easy to do in the car.

 

If you have it back in the car now I have a thread on how to remove the cover. It is not as bad as you think.

 

ouch! End play = standard .0016-.0028 max = .0035 to much end play.. install bigger spacer.. to little end play get smaller spacer or flat sand the same one.

 

Has nothing to do with installing a spacer. He did not follow the procedure to ensure that the torrington bearings would not drop out of place when removing the front pulley.

 

umm... when the torrington bearing gets crushed by the spacer, endplay goes to zero, it doesn't get larger.
I agree that he needs to remedy this problem by restacking the front assembly, but I don't think the torrington bearing will be pinched.

 

I'm not totally sure why, but you do end up with a bunch of end play when the bearing slips out of place. I know this from first-hand experience. This was from my engine:
http://mazdatrix.com/faq/pulley.htm

-Max

 

You said the motor was out of the car..... Is there a flywheel on the motor??