Broke adjustment (?)bolt while trying to change power steering belt. Safe to drive in the mean time?

Hi everybody, first time posting here in the forums. Just made an account minutes before posting.

Every morning when I would start my 1999 2.4, it would make a squealing noise. Only occurs when the engine has cooled. Noise lasts anywhere from a second to several. That being said, when the squealing noise went on for several seconds, it would stop immediately when I turned off the AC. With limited experience doing auto maintenance, I figured it is the water pump/AC belt. I also decided at that point to change all 3 belts at once. Just bought the Tacoma a few months ago, figured may as well. I've already changed diff fluid, tranny fluid, spark plugs, TPS sensor(which was a nightmare), and just did my 2nd oil change.

I found an excellent write up here on the forums and decided to follow it. I started with the powersteering belt, but the dang bolt snapped right in half on me. It still seems to be in place. Pulley and belt still tight. Should have used penetrating fluid, I know.

What I want to know, is it safe to drive in the meantime until I have time to get the bolt out? Also, how do you suggest I get it out? On the other end, the broken half of the bolt is visible , just sticking out. I circled it. Maybe I could use vice grips to get it started?

 

Did you loosen the pulley before trying to tighten the adjuster? Sounds like you didn't. If you never loosened the pulley then it shouldn't have really moved much if at all & you'll be fine until you get it fixed.

 

No, I didn't. Was I supposed to loosed the pulley before the adjuster?

Also, thanks for your quick reply

 

Yes, you have to loosen the pulley before turning the adjusting bolt otherwise the pulley won't go anywhere. So without loosening the pulley, when you tightened the adjuster that's probably why it broke but I can't see it breaking that easily.

Assuming your pulley assy looks like this below, you can see how it works. Assuming the adjuster bolt is not rusted or anything it shouldn't have any tension on it & should come out easily.

 

Ah, I see. Yup, that is exactly how the pulley looks like. So if I understood correctly, I can just loosen the pulley, and be able to swap the belt without having to worry about the broken adjustment bolt?

 

Yes & no. You can loosen the pulley & swap the belt but with the broken adjuster bolt you won't have a way of retensioning the belt unless you use a pry bar or something to pull the pulley up & retighten the pulley.

I would try to getting a replacement adjusting bolt to fix when you replace the belt. Until then I would just leave it alone. If the squeak is bothering you, since it's not a constant squeak, get a bar of soap & rub it on the inside of the belt (not with the engine running of course). Or auto parts stores sell a lubricant called belt dressing in an aerosol can that works too. But that's just a bandaid & I don't like spraying anything on belts.

 

I see. Alright, I will look into getting a replacement bolt. Looks like I'll have to drill it out then. Thanks

 

You may not have too. The pic below.... so it broke at the red circle. Try turning the bolt at the blue circle to back it out. You don't want to grab it with pliers (or do so very lightly) cause if you damage the threads you won't be able to thread it through the block.

You want the bolt to come out from the red circle side cause where the bolt snapped the threads could be deformed. But chances are they might not be. So try threading it both directions. If it's stuck, normally you would drill with a left hand drill bit & use a bolt extractor on the red circle side. But if you don't have one, you can try drilling from the blue circle side with a standard right ha d drill bit, the bit may catch then thread the bolt out.

 

I was thinking of that. Ok, I will have to give that a try. What do you suggest I use instead of pliers?

 

The bolt shouldn't be tight & if it isn't you can use pliers but lightly. If it is tight, try putting a piece of rubber hose over the bolt & grap that with the pliers. I have those plastic protective covers that slip on the jaws of pliers, they come in handy for stuff like this.

 

Fantastic, thank you so much. I'll try this out, hopefully on Sunday

 

No problem, good luck!

 

With the age of the truck I would just get a used pulley and adjuster unless you want the experience with this one.

Chock it up to a lesson learned

 

If it were me, and if I were having problems getting the bolt out of the bracket, I would consider heating up the bracket with my Bernzomatic before trying to get the bolt out. I wouldn't let the flame touch the bolt though, and I wouldn't apply so much heat that the bracket starts to get red, and I wouldn't do any of this without first trying some liquid wrench...