Bought my Mazda awhile back and well I had some Serious Issues with my timing, turns out it was a lot worse than that. This is off an old forum i posted on, but nevertheless be on the lookout for some shady dudes selling engines like this...especially in the Country in North Carolina..haha nah I just had a bad experience and should have paid close attention.
well no luck....had an ASE cert guy come out here, who's family friend and we proceeded to "start" the timing process all over again...well it kept jumping teeth after every 2nd rotation of the bottom crank....so we took the harmonic balancer off, and then proceeded to take off the bottom crank...well got the bolt off easily with an impact wrench and loads of PB Blaster.
BUT as we tried using a puller on the crank, it just would not budge...he looked at me and said you're F$#@-ed.. After about 20 mins of play we got er off...and heres the Aftermath of my wobbling/no tension issue and why the truck (since i bought it) has always ran rough
the major chip in the Key way
here's why it wouldnt come off and the pieces of the broken key
He had to know this because the crank was forced on and was attempted to take off and just left it, got it running and sold it to a "dumb, fresh out, novice" US Army solider (myself) because now its not his problem but mine.
I sent him a email just asking about if he had timing issues in the past and what kind of replacement anything he had to do, but Im sure he knew that the crank was done for finally after a year of being broken. But never told me and sold me the truck at an unfair price .
So i guess its no one's fault by my own and it really sucks that people treat others this way....
So once Im able to afford a new engine, i'll be Mazda-less and bored with my automatic trans lame @$$ ford ranger.
So the moral is, don't buy from sketchy people or you'll regret it.