Found bolt in bilge...cannot find where it goes .....help please-gctid813150

[RobMick]

While on the water after a day of being on the hook, before I restart I always open the engine compartment and do a visual check of things. Well I found a bolt laying in the bilge that wasn't there before. It looks like one of these bolts that I circles. I looked around for an "empty" hole with threads.....the only one I could find was in the power steering pulley center. No bolt was there, the inside is threaded and the bolt fit in. I lightly screwed it in and left in for the return home. Boat ran fine, engine sounded good. I ran the boat before leaving our spot and looked at the pulley....it didn't seem to wobble at all, I don't know if I would see that or not. The pics that I found on line, didn't show a bolt in that pulley center. As mentioned, I didn't tighten down the bolt yet as I want to be sure that is the location where it goes. I literally looked for "open holes" for about 20 minutes and that was the only one I could find, right in front of the engine on the power steering pulley and the bolt was laying in the bilge right below.

Any help is always appreciate

[SKUA_28_Contessa]

The power steering pump pulley is a press fit. the threads are there for a puller. The bolt goes somewhere else.

[Chief_Alen]

Look at your starter, one bolt missing or snapped ?

Maybe shut off your MBSS switch before touching the starter.

Is there a bracket on the forward bolt to the block, on the starter ?

Post back !

Came back to edit ...

If you find that one of the starter bolts is missing don't do anything till you post back, understand ?

[RobMick]

Gotcha chief...

I will look this morning..

Thanks

[driz]

Post a pic of the bolt too and say its size and wrench size. Ditto on the don't start it thing. If it's from a starter and starter starts drifting around some starting it could tear teeth off your flywheel = many many tears.....inch: inch: inch:

[RobMick]

I will post pics of bolt and size...

Thanks again for the help

[SKUA_28_Contessa]

On a Chevy V8, the starter bolts are typically 1, 2.5 in bolt and 1, 4-5 inch bolt, both with knurled shanks. It's possible though that the bolts have been replaced over the years. Also the starter is located back by the flywheel cover/ transom

[RobMick]

Ok...it's not from the starter....spoke to my mechanic on the phone and walked me thru the possible locations....nothing. He then asked if ANYTHING was out of the ordinary once I noticed the bolt, starting, running, noises ...there was nothing. He summation over the phone at least was that sometimes extra bolts may be placed on a motor or bracket on a motor that were never used because the engine or the boat didn't have that option...makes some sense...he said that he often times will find something like,this..

I sent him a couple of pics...the bolt is about 1" long. I tried to see if it would find into the empty circled holes in the one pic as it to hang a bracket for a component... the bolt fits perfectly.




Attached files

[RobMick]

Bolt and found location

[driz]

A tad of blue lock tire might be in order . Since it's accessible it might be good to check any neighboring bolts for loosening