the no bueno busted bolt saga....

So those of you on FB saw my photo of the snapped bolt in my intake. I spent about an hour last night unsuccessfully trying to coax it out with vise grips and PB blaster.

Soaked it overnight in PB, got home today and spent 2 hours on it. It's still in there. tried the Vise grips again, no dice. Tried heating up the intake around it, tapped with a hammer to try to break the rust loose....no dice.

Finally relented and got the drill out. Started to drill and two things happened. My work phone started ringing every other minute, then it poured rain for half an hour........ Got the hole drilled about halfway down the bolt length, tried putting in the screw extractor and as I told Flash Gumby on the phone last night, snapped the POS Chinese handle from my tap and dye set. Put the Vise Grips on it, got to a point where I got worried about stipping out the reverse threads.......

Decided to wrap it up at 8:15 as the rain came back.....siiiiiiigh day two and Grimace is still outta commission.

This is the part where you get out your welder, and a new nut, and within minutes you're backing it out of there.

This is also where you go down to the local drug store (not that dude on the corner...a real drug store) and ask for veterinarian grade iodine. Not the household stuff, the concentrated stuff. You should also get a can of spray cool from your local electronics store (used to flash cool electronic components).

Use gentle heat around the bolt (not the bolt itself, you want to get the surrounding area warm) and apply the iodine liberally and let sit for an hour (or better still overnight), re-applying a couple of times. After an hour heat up the area, again gently, till the surrounding area is at least hot to the touch. With visegrips or easy out in hand, spray just the bolt with the spray cool. In theory, the bolt will contract quickly and you should be able to losen it with the visegrips or easy out.

If that doesn't work, what John said, just don't weld the bolt to the block.

Bill

heat it up hot witha cheapie propane torch, inside the hole and outside,.the melt a wax candle into the hole, burn it again,.then douse it with cold water,. then heat again,.
try to remove it while its hot,.

when you,re drilling use a variable speed drill and turn it slowly and keep it a little wet,.

nick

Been there, no fun, my hats off to you. Drilling out broken bolts is such a joy.

A novel idea might be to use a left hand drill bit (yes they do exist). It would put torque on the bolt in the "remove" direction, it also causes vibrations, and at the same time makes the hole for the extractor. Sometimes just the drilling with the left hand bit will remove the bolt.

I had a nut that was stuck once, but it came right out when my wife applied some "Double D's - 40" to it.

HEY-OHHHHH!

Fred Kiehl wrote:

A novel idea might be to use a left hand drill bit (yes they do exist). It would put torque on the bolt in the "remove" direction, it also causes vibrations, and at the same time makes the hole for the extractor. Sometimes just the drilling with the left hand bit will remove the bolt.

Harbor frieght is across from my office. armed with a 20% coupon, I'll be getting a set of those tomorrow. And they are on sale too!. That's plan A. Plan B, is the weld a nut when my buddy with the welder can come over on Saturday.


Bill, how does the Iodine react with the rust?

Sprocket wrote:

Bill, how does the Iodine react with the rust?

Probably the best and least known penetrant and rust dissolver out there. The trick is to get it to creep into the thread area. Tends to be too thick to get into the small places unless you use the heat osmosis trick.

Old farmer method. If they have animals, they also have the good iodine. Just don't get it near any cuts or scrapes. Stings like hell. Good for the wound but stings none the less.

Bill

Good info Bill, learned something......

Local pharmacist said they haven't carried it in awhile

Bought a set of Leftie drill bits and managed to drill a deeper hole.
Tried the screw extractor bit again and started to split the little bit that is still above the intake so I stopped that as I'll need something to weld too.....

sprayed it down with PB again and leaving it sit till Saturday when we can weld....
What a PITA. Was goingt to fix my Healey brakes so I can have a car, but now I have to help junior with a school project....

What really sux is having two drivable cars with no plates or insurance on 'em....just too costly here on the insurance ~($500 yr for each additional car).

i wonder why i from the rust belt even give advice on how to remove bolts,.

nick

phantom 309 wrote:

i wonder why i from the rust belt even give advice on how to remove bolts,.

nick

Because you have experience.

I didn't try the wax method as the corrosion around the top of what's left was bad enough that I didn't think the wax could penetrate the threads. So I'd been wearing that down with the PB..... Now that I tried drilling it out, I'm afraid that if I grab it with vise grips, it'll crush or break and I'll have nothing to weld too..... I feel as though I have made matters worse at this point.....

You can weld to a bolt that's broken off below the surface of a block or head without concern because the weld will stick to the broken tool or bolt like you need it to, but it won't penetrate and stick to the cast material that it's stuck inside of.

It's not a big deal.

Bewber wrote:

You can weld to a bolt that's broken off below the surface of a block or head without concern because the weld will stick to the broken tool or bolt like you need it to, but it won't penetrate and stick to the cast material that it's stuck inside of.

It's not a big deal.

who taught you that? and If I remember your doubted that it would work

Well of course I doubted it, but after having done it somewhere between 3 and 10 times, I'm convinced it works well enough to pass that little nugget along to others.

bueno información


so I don't have to worry about my 5th grade welding skilz

Of course you do. The thing to remember is that it may not work on the first time. I gave up on trying this because I'd tried it 4 times and it never worked. You just have to keep trying. It really does work.

Sprocket wrote:

I didn't try the wax method as the corrosion around the top of what's left was bad enough that I didn't think the wax could penetrate the threads. So I'd been wearing that down with the PB..... Now that I tried drilling it out, I'm afraid that if I grab it with vise grips, it'll crush or break and I'll have nothing to weld too..... I feel as though I have made matters worse at this point.....

I would guess you have applied zero heat so far,. it,s the heating and cooling from the welding that breaks it free,.
After you have spent 30 yrs working on rust belt cars,. you realise that just before the cast starts to sag,. it,s hot enough,.IF as i said you had used a cheapie propane bottle and heated it up as hot as you can,. and THEN used the wax,. you might be pleasantly surprised and be able to chase the bolt out with a sharp centre punch,.

There is an old thread i did on the other forum called 'mig magic" it works the best,. i,ve removed a few of lt1 exhaust bolts broken below flush,. i bought a car cheap one time because the guy was quoted $1100 to fix the leaking manifold and broken bolt(S) it took me an hour or so start to finish to re and re manifold, remove 2 broken bolts, including 15 minutes underneath heating exhaust nuts up red hot so they came off,. and then reheating and tightening them down on reinstall,.

If you have a hole in the middle of the bolt,.and you are worried about collapsing the bolt drive a smaller bolt into it and then weld,.
You might be better off yo just keep drilling till you out to the threads and then re=tap it,.
or drill the mother over size,. shove a stud and some JB weld in the hole, let it set up, it,s only a friggin t stat , not a main bearing,.

Nick

AMEN!

I had used up a bottle and half on the cheapie plumbing torch. To no avail.
I'm totally on board with the heat heat heat method. used it to get all the bolts loose on that NYSP 1A2 I had. One of the first things I did after breaking it was heat it up.

Today's activities incuded:

Six tries with the welder to weld a nut on top (kept breaking off). My buddy is a decent welder too. So after 90 minutes of that (and the bolt did get quite hot)

acetylene torch for LOTs of heat on the bolt, did the wax thing. heat, hold candle to base watch the wax melt and draw into threads. heat some more, more wax, 3X times. Then sprayed it down with that nut freeze stuff and try the screw extractor.

Ended up snapping off the MFing hardened nut extractor in the hole I drilled in the bolt!!!

Good news is it's flush on top so it'll be easy to weld too tomorrow. My buddy felt the nut kept breaking off due to the drill hole in the middle as it wouldn't fill up with weld.


He couldn't believe it wouldn't come out after all the heat. It's being a biatch this one....

Success at last!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reason why we failed yesterday was the extension cord. Today fired up a 6K generator and plugged the Mig in it and we got more penetration that Ron Jermey at a sorority house.

It's out and I'm beyond friggin happy about it. Now I'd put it all back together and go for a celbration burn out, but Home Depot closed 5 minutes ago and I didn't buy a replacement bolt yet, DOH!

You can do burnouts with a 305?

Same bolts as exhaust manifolds, in case you have some of those kicking around...

Congrats, btw.

Very cool! Glad you got it out! Congrats!

-Mike

found my thermostat....yaaay.


Sting, yes I can sqeal the tires anyway going around corners and in wet parking lots, lol. otherwise it hooks up and launches.

I'd have never guessed!