In the turrentine rebuild video, he checks the end play by prying on the counterweight with a large screw driver. the manual says to check it by hand. When I do it both ways I get different readings. If I pull out by hand as much as I can, I get less than 0.001" endplay. By prying on the counterweight, with quite a bit of force, its like 0.0018". What should I go by? Do I just need to eat my wheaties or what?

No need to pry it with a screw driver. when the engine warms up to working temperature and a serious engine load is applied, metal expands. Expands way over .001 and well over .0018 of an inch. If you don't have an end play over .002 you will find yourself having engine main bearing problems. If you measure the end play on a stock engine(engine never taking apart and built by Mazda) you will find that the end play is easily measured by hand, not by using a screw driver to pry it. If your end play is too tight, as I could see, just change your end play spacer to a bigger one. Tell me the letter on the end play spacer that your using, and Ill tell you the next end play spacer that will give you perfect end play.

Thanks judge, i'll make sure and have an endplay between 0.002 and 0.0028". I was using the thinnest spacer, z. I have the v also.

What does it mean and what should I do if I have no end play in the e-shaft?

What if I have no tools to measure the e-shaft play? All I will be changing are the o-ring water seals and nothing else. Am I taking a big risk not measuring this play?

no offense goracer, but you have A LOT to learn.



and yes this must be taken into consideration when building an engine.

What I found by prying on the front weight is that you get variable endplay readings depending on where around the weight that you wedge the screwdriver. Obviously there is some flex happening, which makes this method dubious at best.

I've since taken to levering up on the rear of the shaft (engine front up on the stand). This seems much more consistent.



Gary

I am not going to claim to be a 13bt expert, but I rebuild large compressors as part of my job, and to properly check end play, you first seat the assembly one direction, either buy pushing on the shaft, or having the assembly in the vertical plane so that wieght pulls it seated against the reference thrust surface, then using a dial indicator, with the dial indicator mounted as close to the base as possible ( the farther the indicator is away from the base, the more beam flex and droop error there will be in the reading), make sure the indicator is 90 deg to the plain you are reading from. using a small prybar, apply enough force to pull up and seat the assembly towards the near thrust surface, you don't need to go crushing the thrust bearings or anything like that, then rotate the assembly a couple of times, and recheck, if you can't repeat your reading with this method, you are doing something wrong with the tools..Maxt

yah, myabe the prybar is giving too much leverage. i like to check it by hand myself

the prybar worked fine for me, if you're experiencing inconsistencies due to 'flexing' you probably have your dial indicator in the wrong place.

I watched the video to, now i'm an expert!



ok basicaly I will "only" be replacing the water o-rings and will be doing it myself because of money. So what I don't know is will the play change when reassembling the block or will it be the same? I am assuming the play is created from wear.



...yes I should be checking the specs on everything but I did "not" have any compression problems. I could have attached a 100 mile garden hose to the radiator and not worried about the o-rings again.

GoRacer don't be suprised if you have to replace more than you think. It most likely isn't going to be as simple as just replacing the water seals, you should replace all the worn down seals and other paper gaskets.

End play is a result of wear of the thrust plate and needle bearings only. So the two needle bearings, one thrust plate and spacer are the only components in the motor which determine end-play. Doesn't matter what you do with the rotors, housings and plates (as long as there is correct width clearance between rotors and aluminium housings) https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/bigok.gif

Yeah, forgot to say whilst getting all technical and all that... the end play should be exactly the same if you put it back together with the same needle bearings and plate.





And don't budget on just a set of coolant rings for your rebuild!

yeah, pull the motor apart and see what you find. you may get lucky and not need anything but you may not. just because it had compression doesnt mean its not totally worn out on the inside, and just because theres low miles on the rebuild doesnt mean that everything was replaced. they could have reused marginal rotor housings and 25k later they arent good anymore



mike

1. What is a 'thrust plate'?

2. What are you reffering to when you say 'needle bearings'?

3. What happens if end play is too loose? Or too tight?

i've been trying to perfect this on the engine



i got .005 the first try with a D spacer



then i put in a C spacer, and got .004



i think mazda says the max is .0035, and normal is .0018-.0028



what are opinions on this? how much are these spacers?

When you measure this end play, be sure the stack is torqued all the way to the maximum allowed. Then measure end play again.



If still to much, oil a flat surface, like a piece of window glass, or a piece of end housing, or a formica counter top. lay a piece of wet or dry #400 grit paper on the oiled surface to keep the paper from moving around and oil the paper.



Measure the spacer length, and calculate how much must be removed.



Slide the spacer in a figure eight pattern on the paper for one minute. Rinse the spacer in solvent and measure again. Continue until the spacer is the correct length.



Lynn E. Hanover

i did that ^



except i used 90 grit (400 took too long) and it went from 3.16 thick to 3.13 thick



now my end play is .001

I'm to that step on my engine, and I dont have the proper tools for measuring the end play. What should I use and where can I find it? How important is this anyways?

Everybody hold a minute...... the problem here is not that he has to much end play. the problem is that he does not have enough. The larger the end play spacer the more end play you will have. The letter C is smaller then the letter D.. You need to try the letter E and you will be with in specs.

This is very, I mean very important. If you do not adjust to proper end play, you will find engine bearing failure over a period of time. When engine parts heat up they expand and if there is no room to grow then the stationary front and rear main bearings will try to walk.. Porper end play is also a mod for reliability. I always run a little more then .0025 in all my engine giving the engine enough to room to grow (side to side) and not jam the front and rear main bearings.

Well,



That is the point of the 400 paper. It lets you remove small amounts of material in a very slow operation.



So you had 0.004" end play with a 0.316 spacer. You needed to remove .001" from

the spacer, to get to 0.315" To get to 0.003" end play. In the zone for Mazda and Judge Eto.



You removed 0.003" to get a 0.313" spacer, or 0.002" too much.



Buy the right spacer.



Lynn E. Hanover

You need a magnetic base stand, and a dial indicator. Harbor Freight tools. Less than $25.00.



The thrust bearings are cheap enough that they should be replaced, since it's apart anyway.



The bearings control crank end play. If you have a distributor or a crank angle indicator, excess end play alters timing. Too little end play can be reduced to zero when the crank flexes and fail a bearing. You can build the engine with zero end play, or zero with a bunch of preload, and the engine will run fine for a while, but the bearings will fail. Both bearings are used to locate the crank fore and aft.



The rear bearing takes the additional load of the clutch release bearing being extended to release the clutch.



Very important.



Lynn E. Hanover

the mazda manual says "if the end play is more than specified replace the spacer with a thinner one, if the end play is less than specified, replace the spacer with a thicker one"



i was confused too but i was going by the manual



http://www.iluvmyrx7.com/3rdgen/manuals/93...copy;engine.pdf

what ito said is right only after he removed too much material and got down to .001, he was too big initially.

Since we're on the topic of the front cover stuff....



I had an 87 TII engine spin the front and rear bearings after a few thousand miles. I believe that what happened is that I put in a very heavy duty pressure plate when I did the rebuild and the 15 year old front thrust plate in the front cover cracked because of this and let things move around too much.



When I took the engine apart, the front thrust plate that the thrust bearings ride on was split into two pieces! The needle thrust bearings were all messed up. It could be clearly seen that the side of the eccentric shaft rotor lobe had collided with the flat surface of the front iron plate... there were bad burn marks on the front iron all over the area inside the oil seal tracking marks. It was some major destruction!



Ever since then I always use a new thrust plate and I also recommend that people put the "upgraded" thrust bearing in there on an FC. Mazdatrix sells them. They are the same thickness, but they have more needle rollers in them to better take the load.



Brian

Wait a minute it was to early in the morning when I read this thread. I think like 5:30 am and I must have been half a sleep. Ok your telling us that you got .005 of an inch then .004. That is five thousands of and inch and 4 thousands of an inch. way to much. Yes grinding down the spacer will make it smaller and giving you less end play. You tried the letter C and D .. D is larger then C, I would order the letter B and the letter A just to be on the safe side and try them and re-measure.

went to rick engman's shop and let him inspect it, he ended up with a C spacer and the end play is .0030, that's perfectly fine



thanks for the help guys https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...#>/biggrin.png glad i didn't try to run it with .001 ;-)

I just tested mine and I got .002" end play... you said you always have at least .0025 so should I get a bigger spacer or just keep it the way it is? This is a street ported S5 engine running a T04B turbo at 15psi.

.002 is fine. You could use it with no worries. The problem really happends when you don't have no end play or barely have enough.

Most thrust bearing failures occur during disassembly. You have read all of these systems for removing the flywheel or counterweight from the rear taper. It is a big problem, and the first time you have to do it, it can be maddening.



The most popular system seems to be to pry like hell on the front of the flywheel and the rear iron while beating the snot out of the flywheel. The big problem with this method is that it almost always works. What? It works and thats a problem?



Yep.



When you pry on the flywheel or counterweight, you are trying to pull the crank out of the engine. What is preventing that from happening?



The front thrust bearing set is being crushed between the hard washer on the back of the front counterweight and the thrust plate. Both pieces are harder than the hinges of hell. They do not react well to bing bent. The wear washer on the back of the counterweight gets little dents in it. The center of the thrust plate bends further than the outter edge so it forms a bit of a cone.



The outer ends of the rollers in the front bearing set often fracture off tiny fragments from the outer ends of the rollers.



So now that you have the engine apart, circle the help around the trash can, raise an adult beverage in a salute to the good service rendered by the dearly departed thrust set, and drop ALL of it into the can. Don't keep any pieces around to look at or play with. If you keep even one piece hanging on a nail or whatever, it eventually find it's way back into another engine.(If you braze the thrust plate to the bottom of your oil can, it will stop falling over and leaking all over hell every time you walk into the room).



Don't forget the hard washer on the back of the front counterweight, and the thick one against the front throw. The one with the chamferred center hole. That is the one you damaged when you strike the flywheel in line with the crank.



I have not been burned yet by hanging on to the endplay spacers but maybe some day.



Even if you use the factory like Racing Beat puller, If you didn't put that thrust set in this engine, replace everything. The idiot that built it the last time probably beat the crap out of it getting the flywheel off.You know how they did that, remember?





Lynn E. Hanover

Re: E-shaft End Play
 

Sorry if someone already answered this question. Upon reading this thread i'm concern about my end play. I replaced all of the washers/ thrust bearings in the front stack and running down the bolt (hand tight) i measured about .003, after following racing beat recommendation of raising the torque from 87 to 120ft-lb ( i went to 105 figured it half way between 87 and 120) my clearance now measures .0009-.0012, if i really put a pry bar to the counter weight i measure maybe .0014. Should I be concern and reduce the torque for play, or just let it be?