For the past two weeks, my car has been leaking antifreeze through the weep hole on the water pump, indicating that the seals were bad. So, Jaime (Jay25) kindly gave me his old water pump (with 52k miles on it) and I purchased two new seals. I took out the passenger's side engine mount and bracket, took out the timing chain tensioner successfully and uninstalled the old water pump.

Now, while installing the new one, one of the heads to one of the three fu(king bolts that holds the water pump onto the engine broke off. So, now I have a missing bolt head in my engine. Now, we took two different telescoping and non-telescoping magnets alike and tried to find it (it is magnetic) and we had no luck. My question is, where does the bottom of the timing chain cover go to? Does the area around the water pump feed oil into the upper oil pan, etc etc etc? Everything was going good until this came up. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks all.

 

Erik this is VERY bad news, very bad.

DO NOT start the car for any reason. Because it could be sitting on the bottom crank where the chain is and could get caught up and bye bye timing chain and gears.

Jaime has that nice long one thats stronger than those POS ones you get at auto stores. Try that, that was we used with the pin and spring fell in there.

Dixit

 

or, maybe just drop the oil pan, and start pouring cheap oil in the area and maybe that will wash it out. Either way good luck, and like dixit said, do not start the car for any reason!

 

Do that and all you'll end up with is a mess (and possibly screw
something else up at the same time). Unfortunately, unless you get lucky and
can get it out with a magnet, you're going to have to bite the bullet and remove
the timing cover.

 

Hmmmm, ok, I shall be giving Jaime a ring. I hate to bother him with this.

Dixit, should I remove the water pump to gain more access in that area? No matter what, I guess I have to because I need to remove that headless bolt, and do something about all that. Damn it. And, I will have to purchase two NEW seals AGAIN damn it. Oh well, I guess I have to pay to play.

 

Shiet...I just read it again, so you broke the bolt? Son of..... Hopefully you can get the thread part out without drilling.

Problem is I gaurantee you it didnt fall into the lower pan, no way its down there. Its either on the crank near the chain or sitting on the timing cover ledge.

I guess the only thing you can do is this. Gotta be patient and see if you can grab it. Or possibly get a small strong magnet that is capable of picking up 5-10lbs and see if that will catch it. Cause luckily it wont grab the timing cover since its alloy.

Dixit

 

Like fish in a barrel, too easy.

 

Well. I am gonna tackle with it in the morning. I am gonna bite the bullet and take off the timing chain cover, since I already have most of that crap off anyways (and I just bought two tubes of Permagrey lol). If I can't find it after that, then I am gonna buy a new engine and drop her in it. All is good though, if it comes to that. Then I will have a newer engine (and not one with over 180k on it).

 

Is it possible it rolled somewhere else? Are you going to try and start it before swapping engines?

I've lost bolts before...looked for them until midnight, only to find them behind a tire. Good luck!

 

I would start with removing the oil pan(s). There is space for stuff to fall down there...but depending on what the bolt got caught up on it may or may not have made it.

But pulling the oil pans is easier than the timing chain cover, and you have to do it anyways to remove the timing chain cover.

 

I agree with ejj, if anything turn the crank by hand and see if it kicks the bolt to fall.

Dixit

 

There's no way on Earth I would start that car with any possibility of the bolt still being in there...

 

Ok, update. I found the missing bolt head THANK YOU GOD lol. I am so relieved. But, now, out of the three threaded holes on the block of the engine for the water pump; the top hole now has a broken "stud" in it, the right one is fine, and the bottom one is stripped, go figure. The bottom one I can re-tap a little bigger, no problem, there is enough room. I just do not know what I am gonna do about the top one.

There is not enough room to even think of putting a drill in there to drill out the stud.

But, here is a new problem, but may be nothing. Looking at the actual "newer" water pump, directly under the fins, there seems to be a seal protruding out of the bearings. Click on this webpage to see the pics. http://www.cardomain.com/memberpage/483233 . Anyone know? I am making a new post about this.

 

One screwed up/broken bolt I can understand, but two? What the heck were
you doing? Oh well.... I'm not sure how much room you have, but you can
rent an angle drill for about $15/day. Some places also rent close quarters
drills. You may also be able to get to it with a flex shaft Dremel. It should
be easy to remove with an easy-out once you have the right sized hole
drilled. Remember, the water pump in a dual overhead cam engine is only
supposed to be tightened to 7-10 ft lbs!

Sorry, but have no idea WRT the seal in the new pump....

 

glad to see you got it out. Got to love my tools 2nd to none.

 

The threaded holes had to have been stripped upon removal of those bolts. I had only threaded in the bolts by hand when the bottom one stripped (180k on the engine may have something to do with it). The top one broke when I was torqueing it to spec with the torque wrench (68-99 pounds according to FSM and Haynes). I had only about 40 pounds on it when it snapped.

DanL: That is a good idea about the angle drill, I will have to do that tomorrow, or sometime before Christmas comes. Anyways, thanks all. I guess I will go to the dealership to see a comparison of the water pumps. Thanks all.....

 

OMG, please tell me you weren't using a standard torque wrench, pretty much all of which are calibrated in FOOT POUNDS. The specs are for INCH POUNDS. 68-99 in-lbs is the roughly the same as 6-8 ft-lbs. It's hard to believe you could twist off a bolt after applying only 40 in-lbs (less than 4 ft lbs). Any indication the water pump was replaced before? If so, someone might have made the same mistake last time and stripped the threads in one of the holes.

 

yup my 92 FSM says 12-15 ft lbs

 

Correct. SOHC engines are 12-15 ft-lbs (144-180 in-lbs), DOHC
engines are torqued to half that.

 

Well that (in vs lbs) explains everything.

 

I have three different torque wrenches. One is in newtons, one is in foot/lbs, and the other is in in/lbs. I was using the right one lol......

 

BTW, THANKS a millon on the flanges, dixit welded them and the work great....
















when used with a brand new crush ring

 

I knew they would. And I do have the three different torque wrenches. I got them last year at a pawn shop in Cartersville, Mr. Smart @$$...... ....

 

Sorry, I just had this ugly vision of you trying to torque it down with a 2 foot torque wrench and cussing at Nissan when the bolt snapped at half it's torque rating.

Here's hoping the rest of the job goes smoother!

 

Fck all that technical **** I just tighten my bolts by hand using the socket wrench! I know my arms are somewhat strong and estimate how tight the bolts/nuts need to be. Now if its an important part I will use a torque wrench!

 

Re-read his post. He was going to pull the whole engine and replace with a new engine, why not see if it will crank if he was going to replace the engine anyway.

 

hahahahaha...Me too. I use the one grunt, two grunts and cussing $%&*spec. If it takes one grunt to loosen the bolt, I torque it down with one grunt. Only thing I use a torque wrench on are the wheels.

 

why use a torque wrench on alloy? you cant torque none of the bolts really really tight, youll strip them. I use loctite and where ever my wrist stops cranking thats where I stop.