Need some help with a broken bolt

OK, so this may seem like a really dumb question but I have to ask. I had to take the front sheet metal off my 48. (had been hit) In doing that, I broke off many bolts. I tried EVERYTHING to get them off, heat, lube, heat - cold- heat, more lubes, twisting to the right, to the left, etc.
So now I want to hang the new sheet metal. (from a '42) I need to get these bolts out of the way. You can see in the pic that I tried to drill and use an extractor, that did not work and now there is a broken extractor in the bolt!

Check out the pics and see if there is an easy way to fix this. There is a little room if you go from the bottom. (see pic) But that is really tight. I was thinking of cutting on both sides of the hole, peeling it up, fixing the bolt and then welding it all back together? That seems like a lot of work. (both sides need to be fixed)

Anyway, feel free to ask questions if the pics don't show all you need to see.
Thanks!

 

damn haha...well i guess you could cut and weld it back together...you would have to watch of that though cause when you weld them back on they would have to be in the exact right spots or the body will hang and the lines wont match up...good luck haha

 

Yeah, that is one of my concerns. The fender hole has some play so it would not need to be perfect but really, really close.
I am hoping someone has a great idea for this... I am sure it has happened plenty of times before.

 

Extractors **** ****. I've never had one work right. If you can get some vise grips into the part under the bolt, and more heat, it should come out.
Or blow it out with a torch, and nut and bolt it back together, there is room.

 

i have had good luck centering a nut over the old bolt and filling the center of the nut with weld,the nut plus the heat get the job done...atleast it has for me

 

Use a small cut-off wheel, remove the old broken bolt. Weld a nut in its place. A long bolt holding the new nut will make it easy to center. Will look similar to pic #3....OLDBEET

 

Heat up the centre of the bolt with a small torch nozzle, then when its just starting to go dull red, quench the area with WD40 or inox or some other penetrene fluid. ( keep some water on hand in case it tries to catch lite, it shouldnt, unless its bright red, it should just smoke a whole lot and cool the area down, while drawing fluid into the thread by capilliary action)
When she has cooled down, put some locking grips on the underside of the bolt, real tight on the thread thats protruding, and then wind it out from behind. Before you start all that though, take a wire brush to the exposed thread, it will make sure that rust, scale and dirt will be emoved first.
Also, the busted stud extractor is made from really hard material, as your no doubt aware. You can anneal it and make it soft enough to drill out using a small carbide drill, by heating and cooling slowly, real slowly, ....a few times. This heating and slow cooling will destroy the heat treatment of the extractor, even if its a hard alloy steel. In future, leave the stud extractors, there a pain in the ***, and go with just drilling the bolt out after annealing it.
If this sort of thing ever happens to you in something valuable like a cylinder head or block, talk to a spe******t engineering shop and ask them about "spark errosion" Its a method where a high frequency and high voltage spark litterally eats away at the offending metal. It works a treat, but you have to find someone with the special equipment, and sometimes it can be expensive, only really an option if your trying to salvage a special and expensive/hard to find part.
Good luck, and remember, these things are sent to try us! Thats what hot rodding and busted knuckles are all about.

 

This is the best way to go. The bolt through the fender holding the nut will keep it centered, so everything will line up. You can buy square nuts at the hardware store so it will "look right". Plus the nut will be new without rust. Just grind off any plating in the area you will be welding.

The other option would be to drill out the broken bolt and retap the threads. Keeping everything centered is the hard part. If you go off center you will damage the nut threads. You cannot drill the "easy out" because it is hardened, but you can drill from the oppsite side and push it out with the drill bit.

 

Blow it out with Oxy. Practice on the old bent panels first - its surprisingly easy.

 

Drill it out and re-tap the threads

 

Use some good penetrating oil, let it soak in, and use vice grips on the back side as mentioned, with a little patience it should come out. If not drill it out, starting with a smaller drill to try and pick up the center of broken bolt, keep stepping up with larger bits until you get tap drill size, then retap.

 

Drill out to the tap drill size and retap should work on the softer bolts.On the extractor or the other stuck bolts use a carbide bur on high rpm air grinder to remove the rest.The extracter will be hard but good carbide should be harder.Have used this method many of times when we have broken taps in holes that we couldnt edm out.