Help! I broke a water pump pulley bolt inside!!

Hi guys hope you can please help out here! I'm pretty experienced with car repairs, but haven't done that much work on Galants before. Helping out a friend replace crank position center on his 2002 2.4L. I understand what the job entails, but I ran into a little issue. I hadn't loosened the water pump pulley bolts before taking off the belt, so I was having a hard time loosening them. I (foolishly) (but thinking I was being smart) used the bolts as a counter force on each other in order to loosen them, meaning i held one tight with a wrench while loosening the other. Well, this worked for most of them, but one of them got over-tightened by this method and the bolt head snapped off!! After pulling the pulley off, I was looking at the "disc" that they appear to bolt into (not sure if that is some kind of bearing?) on the end of the pump shaft, and I don't see any piece of bolt sticking out on either the front OR the back of that "disc." Meaning, I just see the four bolt holes and it all looks normal. I guess this means that the rest of the bolt stud is broken off inside this "disc" and broke in such a way that you can't see it from the front of the the disc, and because it's a short bolt, it doesn't reach to the back of the disc.

I'm at a loss what to do here. First of all, I can't even get the pulley "off." I mean, it's off, but I can't get the clearance to remove it from the disc. But more importanly, I'm not sure what to do after that. Don't think there would be any clearance to do much. Perhaps if I got a hold of a small right angle drill I could drill it out, but even then I'm not too sure I would have enough clearance. And then anyway, don't know how I could possibly salvage the internal threads if I drill it out.

Wow this is so messed up! I have to confess I'm considering just putting back three out of the four bolts and call it a day. Is this a terrible, horrible unthinkable idea? I know it doesn't sound too great, but is it a possibility? I'm guessing the pulley would probably be unbalanced for one, which can't be good. Please help here guys, I kind of messed up this guys car so I'm under a lot of pressure here! Thanks!!

To remove the pulley, you need to remove the passenger side motor mount so you can move the engine around enough to get it out. As for the threads, you could try an extractor then a tap, otherwise replace the water pump.

Sent from my Z981 using Tapatalk

Thanks for the reply. I assume there's no way of getting better access other than removing the pump? Meaning that "disc" that I referred to I assume is integral to the pump shaft, it's pressed on there and no way to remove it or to remove it with other parts, other than to just remove the entire pump?


Also another thought, if I'm able to drill it out, can I just replace it with a longer bolt with a nut on the end? I don't see why not, as there is clearance on the back of that disc...

Still wish I could just put on three out of the four bolts and just "forget" that one but gotta deal with the problems that we make...

Correct. The disc is integral, so you need to remove the water pump. Removing the motor mount will make it a little easier to remove the pump and pulley.

Sent from my Z981 using Tapatalk

What do you think about my nut and bolt idea?

If you can't salvage the threads, you can use a nut and bolt if you have enough clearance. A regular metric bolt from Ace Hardware or something will work fine.

Sent from my Z981 using Tapatalk

I'll be honest, I'm still seriously considering just putting the other three bolts in and hoping for the best. Don't get me wrong, I definitely know that this is a stupid idea and very ghetto, but I think it might work. Because all those four bolts are doing is holding the pulley in place. Granted there are presumably supposed to be all four to be properly balanced, but I think maybe three of them could hold it in the proper position. They are very small and short bolts, so they aren't doing much strength-wise, it's really just a "holding job." Yes I know this is dumb to be considering this, but we had found a way of running the crank sensor without taking off the timing belt, so this would be a lot of extra work for us, we would have to remove the engine mount, upper timing cover, timing belts, etc etc in order to remove the water pump, deal with the broken bolt and reinstall all of the above, and the car is on a tight schedule right now so it's a lot of pressure.

I know it's wrong and stupid to take a short cut that ends up costing you big time, and I usually avoid that at all costs, but can you (or anyone) tell me whether you think this might possibly work? Thanks

It should work. Hell, when I got my G the crank pulley was missing a bolt and it ran fine. I would suggest using some blue locktite on the remaining 3.

Sent from my Z981 using Tapatalk

Ok thanks wow I appreciate the support, someone actually encouraging me to do something stupid! :icon_surprised:

And thanks for taking the time to answer my posts, really appreciated.

Haha I've been in similar situations before, so as a temporary fix, it'll work. With my last car, I had to use electrical wire for my throttle cable when the original one broke, so Jimmy Rigging is pretty familiar to me. And you're welcome.

Sent from my Z981 using Tapatalk

If you can get to it with a drill, use a left, handed drill bit that is slightly smaller than the bolt that broke, so it bites into the metal of the bolt. Once the bit starts to cut, it will pull the broken piece out. Just make sure it's a damn good bit because those bolts are hardened and you don't want to walk the bit into the thread.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk