Pulley Wobble
 

Dear MT.net,

I took the Miata out to check over some stuff, and noticed some significant pulley wobble. Running MS2, never had a chance to warm up.

Timing belt change about ~2k miles ago. Let me know what to do to assuage my panic here - or if I should be going "Oh god, new engine or rebuild time."

What year? 99 from your name? Did u check the bolts if they were loose? Leatherface had pulley wobble on a recent purchase and it ended up being the key on crank being totally trashed.

91.5 big nose 1.6.

I made sure to tighten the crankshaft bolt down to 120ftlbs ~2k miles ago. Key and crank checked out ~2k ago. I can recheck, but it baffles me that that could happen in ~2k.

I would recheck. Alot can happen in 2k

Was hoping to get a bit more info as to what to look for before I head out to the garage to tear everything apart. Heading out there as we speak to check crank tightness.

Stop driving immediately until you tear it apart. Sucks, but better safe than sorry. Give me a few days and I can ship you my FM tool to hold the crank. Ninja tool too if you want it.

My long nose backed out once and it damaged the key way enough that I needed to change the crank. I let it go for far too long though.

Edit: and I thought 120 was on the low end of the spec.

Much appreciated on the offers Curly, however there's a fairly decent chance it may get driven once more, then I throw a new engine in.

116-122 ftlbs is what I have listed for torque.

Update, pulley had came a little bit loose (Not a good sign?), so I re-torqued.

I sincerely doubt that was it, however, and I'll be pulling it apart shortly.

Final update:

Tightened it down, no more wobble.

---- this fancy-ass blue loctite 242 or w/e ----. I'm redloctiting this bitch like I do my RX7s, it's never coming lose short of a torch.

Glad its fixed

Glad its fixed! Pulley wobble is scary, I forgot to torque water pump pulley bolts once and it sounded like a midget with a hammer in there.

I forgot to tighten my lug nuts once.

Thanks for the help guys! It is appreciated!

On a troubling note, in the time I ran it while cleaned of loctite, it loosened - likely 80 ftlb range. Red loctite +130ftlb better hold that bitch in this time.

Be careful. I had a friend who once broke the crank pulley bolt off inside the crank. His motor was at 160k miles and it was likely the original crank pulley bolt.