Hey everyone,
Hoping someone can provide some guidance/suggestions on how to resolve this. Currently in the middle of a repair that went from mildly annoying to flat out disastrous. While removing the passenger side lower control arm for replacement, the mounting bolt that goes through the rear bushing (#23 in the photo) snapped off. I have since dropped the engine support that it goes through in the hopes that it was simply pinched between the support and the underside of the car, and have discovered that it is not, in fact, wedged between there. Instead it seems the head is somewhere inside the firewall.


The bolt in question:



Does anyone have any idea at all how to replace this? I have a new one coming from Mazda tomorrow, but ordered it under the (inaccurate) assumption that dropping the engine cradle would give me access to it. I doubt that the head is just under the carpet on the passenger side, but checking that is my next step before...I don't know. Almost at the point where I'm going to junk this thing even though it only has 83k on the clock (yes, that's right) and runs like a top and put my Heep back on the road and pray that the transmission doesn't give out completely on it.

 

Hello I'd be very interested knowing if you've got your problem figured out.

It's very frustrating it happened to me years ago when I was changing the lower control arms and after having a few friends look at the Bolt we all came to an agreement that they put this bolt in before putting the subframe up and I wasn't about to take the subframe down. one of my friends who has his own auto body shop and is an excellent welder and I found a bolt with the same size and pitch thread I cut the head off and welded. I know it was supposed to be torque to about 150 pounds but I only torque mine to about 100 pounds and use thread locker.

I don't know if this is a bit late but I hopefully this might help you.

2000 Mazda MPV ES – Still going strong after almost half a million Kms, very little rust on the body (undercoated every year) but the its Wearing out and Problems are Starting to set in ☹