either bolt 11 or 16 in the picture http://www.acuraoemparts.com/delray/...All&vinsrch=no whatever one is closest to you when looking down into the engine bay sheared off on me today, like the head of the bolt and the bolt are no longer one, and this is the second time this has happened within 2 months

anybody have a guess as to why??

 

lemme help you out.

 

How did you even notice that?

Same one sheared off two months ago? That's crazy.

 

overtightened???


or the alternater bracket or something might be bent, putting undo stress onto that bolt, needs to be investigated more, considering this is the second time it has happened to you


never has happened to me BTW

 

I would probably pull the alternator out and take it to Autozone. Have them spin it up for you just to eliminate that it's not a vibration coming from the alternator that's breaking the bolt.

 

fuck me, well after having a look at it, it broke off just a bit inside the hole and its been a bitch trying to get it out

I noticed it because since the alternator isnt being held up the belt that spins it doesnt spin it and the car runs off the battery... this next part is kind of cool/scary/wierd

so I noticed while driving to school so I couldnt pull over and wait for a tow truck or anything but first thing that happens is the battery light comes on then the navi shuts down to conserve power then the brake light comes on (by now I've shut off the radio so I dont know how it would effect that) then.... and this is weird.... the gauge cluster shuts down so no rpms no speed gas or heat readings but the battery, brake and check engine light stay on and the car still runs decent for a bit so I'm working on it now and am just having a bitch getting the bold out

 

and I actually think its bolt 10

 

almost seems like it is going to self-protect mode, and shutiing things off automatically to keep you from being stuck on the side of the road, be nice if it actually did that, but then again never really want to find out


to remove that bolt, remove the bracket from the car/engine, so you can work on it in a vise, be much easier or is it the one that actually goes into the block itself, cause that would suck even more

 

its the one that actually goes into the block and its cool that it does go into self protect mode, and now I'm 1000000x times more pissed off, I finally got the bolt out and went to put another one in that fit that I had laying around till I could get a high grade one tomorrow annnnnd as I tighten it up the head of the bolt pops right off in the wrench followed by a loud use of the word fuck by me and now im having a harder time getting this bolt out I need a smiley for shooting myself in the head

 

, close

almost by the sounds of it, you might have overtightened the other ones also

 

haha close enough

but no definitely not an over tightening situation there was still a gap between the block and the bracket

I think the real problem is that my car has a salvaged title and that side had some work done to it, no problems at all until this because the bolts weren't the original ones and the holes have been tapped and the bracket has a weld in the middle

 

well fuck my life I can't for the life of me get that fucking bolt out
so because of this stupid ass bolt my car is now out of commission till I either get it out or pay someone to get it out
I think I'll take some time this weekend as an excuse to clean my IM maybe more but I'm going to bed... way to mad to be awake much longer

 

Twice? That's insane. My first guess was overtightened. The bent bracket makes sense too. Since the alternator has an autotensioner, I doubt the belt was overtighted. Are you using an OEM belt? Just my . Good luck, keep us posted!

 

I know you know what you are doing, but I had an intake manifold bolt I overtightened and a screw extractor make pretty easy work to get it out. On the alternator belt it is exposed to the elements more, maybe let it soak with some wd40 or liquid wrench and smartly tapping on it a little with a punch or something before trying to extract it?

 

Bolt is too long and bottoming in the hole before grabing the bracket.

 

^ya I think thats the issue, man this thing is giving me a hard time and no its not the oem bolt I'm going to go get a high grade bolt today so this doesnt happen agian

 

can you not just cut the bolt so u can tighten it in (what you can)

that would be my route

 

bolt then bottoms out in the hole, which it might already be doing, and the bolt is kinda mandatory to have, to actually be able to drive his car




and for OP, salvage title does not help at all ethier, kinda why i stay away from them

also if indeed the bolt is bottoming out, a couple washers under the head of the bolt does wounders for keeping it from bottoming out

 

Ya I'm thinking the washer thing may be the trick, but the salvaged title thing does suck but other than this I've never had an issue

 

look at each panel for the "VIN sticker", that will give you a general idea of what panels and such have been replaced

and yeah have never liked salvaged title cars, there was a reason for them being totaled, then being fix for cheaper then the estimate, which totaled them in the first place

 

Just get the right length bolt, not another high strength that is too long.

 

Once you remove that bolt, I would tap the threads if i were you before you make another attempt.

 

ok update time
^ smiley means good news

So I fixed it yesterday, I screwed up and was using a grade two bolt and the bracket (part 1 in the picture) was bent, but from whoever fixed it in the first place, so I went and bought a new bracket and a stronger bolt

but before I get ahead of myself, I was never able to get that second bolt out so I had to tap and dye the head which sucked alot of ass, I had to take the power steering pump and bracket out along with the abs controller and that bracket and anything else that was in the way of getting a drill in there PITA, once that was all said and done, with a lot of loc-tite it was easy-peasy

And with the cleaned IM the car seems way faster.... but that may be because I was driving my dad's TL-S all weekend and that thing seemed slow as shit.

Also with the new bracket, it didn't fit quite right but everything around it lined up perfectly so I came to the conclusion that some idiot had taken a bit off the original head where the bolt goes in but a couple washers fixed that up and it gives me more reason to take a page from civicdrivr's book and build a 3.6 one day

 

Great new Nersh! Congrats.

 

sadly you will still have the same problem, especially if you build up your current engine, cause you reuse the same heads


but for getting it fixed

 

ya if I build a different engine it won't be this one, so I don't have to deal with this kind of shit and I can still use my car while building it

 

that works too , but yeah if i build a motor for my car, i want a different engine to start with, so i can take my time doing everything right, and still have a car that is driveable

 

exactly,

not having to worry about needing a car to drive (at least for me, I know others have more than 1 car) is a definite advantage to getting shit done right