I like when people say "The bolt must have backed out.", like it was a voluntary action as if it robbed a liquor store with a gun.

I never touched it. I wish I had so I could explain why this would happen almost 4k miles after the timing belt change.

did you buy the car brand new?

is that the cars first timing belt job?

have you had a shop remove the balance shafts?

when you were doing the belt did you put a wrench on that sprocket to put its timing mark in place after the belt had some tension on it?


Eddie Rosado

Those nuts are very tight, I doubt you could even loosen it by using it to rotate the belt.

I have NEVER seen one of these nuts back off if it has never been tampered with. Eddies questions are extremely valid in this situation.

DSM's used to dump this nut with some frequency. So, I suspect there is no owner contribution to this problem. It is just an old known problem and bad luck.

I've been driving, racing, and wrenching on DSM's for 10 years now and never heard of this nut backing off. I have about 200,000 miles of daily driving either a 1g or evo and again never had this issue you speak of. When you combine all my friends with 1g's, 2g's, and evo's that I help work on(probably another 500,000 plus miles) and again we have never seen this "problem".

Just saying.......

I'm with 0x ^^ Never once heard of this. No system is perfect. Maybe it was under torqued from the factory.

Sorry to hear about your misfortune. I would rebuild the engine yourself, FWIW.

i've never seen this happen on its own either. only time i ever saw something like this happen was on a honda timing belt that i did, i completely and entirely forgot to tighten the crank bolt for the crank pulley. so the pulley came off. luckily it was just the accessory one. or the crank damper.


Eddie Rosado

I was a member of the Talon Digest and later DSMtalk. Between them I’m guessing they had 14,000 members. On both forums the oil pump sprocket nut coming off was a common topic. The consensuses advice then was to remove the nut at belt time, check its condition, and retorque to 55 ft lbs (the required torque for a DSM). So, it was hardly an unheard of problem.

I wanted to go on record that I skimmed this when I originally posted and was in the mdst or reading other tbelt threads, and missed that the oil pump gear fell off..

All though I still think that strange things seem to happen more with some of the aftermarket belts.

Thanks for all of the responses guys. This actually is worse I have a interlock on my car which is the only reason I am able to drive so I guess I have to find some way to install in my other car for now.... This really sucks financially I can't afford a new motor or to rebuild but I might not have any choice in the matter.

I wanted to update everyone about my Evo's problems / illness. I initially wanted to just replace the oilpump and housing, and possibly get a new head from Buschur or AMS, well after I dropped the oil pan I found about 4 ounces of metal, so knew the bottom end was toast too. Now I am thinking this will be atleast 5K to build the top and bottom end and was leaning toward buying a bucket and putting the Evo on hold until my personal economy got better but couldn't find anything for under 2k that was worth buying. Then I figured I could buy a used motor, put that in and build mine at my leisure and build it right. I managed to find a 2003 Evo 8 Motor with only 18,000 miles on it. I found it on EBay the seller had a 100% rating. So I drove to Kentucky weekend before last and picked it up. This past Friday I started wrenching around 7:00 PM and had the motor and transmission (1 piece) out by 10:00 PM not bad considering it was the first time I had pulled the motor. I had previously replaced a center differential and a clutch / flywheel. After getting the motor out I removed the tranny and found out that my ACT 2900 had started to fall apart. So luckily I had the clutch from the other motor and decided to put that one back on and roll with that. I started working at 1:00 Saturday and was driving the car by 7:15 PM that night. Thanks alot to a very mechanically inclined neighbor and a best friend who can build or break anything with a motor and wheels. The car runs very strong, it still had all of the accessories, including the AC, Alternator, Turbo, all but the starter. My turbo was on its way out which was kind of evident when I dynoed the car last summer. So now my car is faster than ever stock top and bottom end but I have a problem. The clutch which I know was in good condition, I saw it and I saw the car it came out of running and had no shifting problems. If I want to use reverse, I have to turn the car off, put it in reverse than start it and back up. I also have problems going into every gear, 1st being one of the most difficult. Any ideas why this would be? Should I bleed my clutch? Any advise would be greatly appreciated. I am attaching a few photo's for your viewing pleasure. Thanks in advance for any help or advice.


Thanks,

PPM

Sounds like a clutch adjustment issue, because it is happening in every gear. I believe you can adjust the clutch by the pedal.

It looks like you pulled the engine with the transfer case attached, is that correct? Was it hard to get it out that way? I always disconnect mine. Also did you remove your oil filter housing?

I had the oil filter housing removed during removal but it was on during installation. You have to remove the AC and slide it up and over the side of the car, you also have to remove the AC mount and the front motor mount, then with a little angling you can pull it out with the tranny and transfer case attached.

Cool, I don't have an ac, so that isn't an issue. I might try this method next time if it is easy enough, because getting that transfer case back on while laying under the car is a pain. By far the worst part of putting the engine back in.