Broke the adjustment bolt for the water pump belt
 

Hello :)

I was trying to remove the accessory belt that drives the power steering pump and the water pump today. I've done this before, but the bolt was pretty gunked up from a power steering leak I've been battling.

Long story short I put too much wrench on the adjustment bolt and it snapped :eek:

I tried to dig up some microfiche to get the Nissan part numbers, maybe order from nissanparts.cc, but I hit some dead ends. Is the fiche readily available somewhere?

This seems like something I should order directly from Nissan but any solution will do.

I've attached a picture of the bolt in question. Half of it is lodged in the piece it connects to, so I have a feeling I'll need both the bolt and the bit that it connected into.

Thanks in advance for any help!

there a chance you can just pocket the bolt at a pick n pull?

I think I'm going have to get it from a junkyard one way or another. I went down to the Nissan dealer and they said the bolts have been discontinued. They did give me the OEM Nissan part numbers though. I plugged them into nissanparts.cc and the website acted like they would sell them to me. I have a feeling if I followed through they would come back and say that they have been discontinued however. I believe they are just a Nissan dealer as well.

I have zero experience with junkyards unfortunately. Is it as simple as it sounds? Call the local junkyards in your area? I used to know of a great Nissan junkyard in Saint Louis, MO (about 2 hours from me) but I'm not sure if they are still in business or not because it's been about 10 years since I was there.

Yeah, I mean this is really pretty simple - you just need to find a local u-pull-it type junkyard. Then like chromey said... you simply find those bolts in the yard and welp, pocket them. It goes on everyday at every junkyard in America. The u-pull-it type yards charge you a few to get in (usually $1 or $2) and part of the reason why is because it's pretty much an open secret that everybody at yards just pockets piddly items like that (nuts, bolts, etc). It's kind of an offset for them, they know everybody is doing it anyway, so they offset that with the entrance fee for everybody and thus they still make some money regardless.

Cool! Thanks for the tips guys. I've been banging my head on the wall over this for a few days. It was a stupid mistake and it has grounded my daily driver. I'll start hunting and see what I can find. This is a mistake I won't be making twice, that's for sure.

Thanks again!

Im not sure which ones but there's probably other imports out there in the yard with the right size bolt and piece you need if there isnt any 3rd gens. If im not mistaken theres also still a partout in the classifieds.

Thanks! I am going to go check out those classifieds right now :-)

For anyone that may have this problem in the future:

I discovered that the 4th generation Maxima's use the same bolt, but under a different Nissan part number. Under the new part number they seem to be widely available. Here is the part number, should you ever need it:

11719-31U00

Glad to hear you found one ☺ and good to know the 4th gen ones will work on it.

Thanks! It worked like a charm.

My original problem that led to me breaking that bolt was that the harmonic balancer (crankshaft pulley) bolt kept coming loose. I believe I have that resolved as well, but I'm a bit nervous because when I sit and watch the crankshaft pulley spin it seems like there is a slight wobble. I am hoping it's just in my head...

im coming into this a couple weeks late but keep an eye on that wobble, about 10 years ago when i had my 3rd gen the pulley was wobbling and after getting it replaced it started wobbling again 2 years later, 30,000km later the engine started knocking. its apparently a common problem on VG30E

As I recall it was due to overtightening of the drive belt tension, something about putting excess side load on the crank snout.