broken head bolt... broken extractor.. what now?

I think the moral of the story maybe is that Easy Outs ****! The first few times I tried using Easy Outs, they either didn't work or broke.

If I have to remove the stub of a sheared off bolt, a lot of times I just center punch the exact middle of the stub, then drill it out with a 1/8" stub drill with lots of cutting oil, then work my way up to a drill bit that's slightly under the drill bit you would use to tap a hole that size, then usually you can just get a sharp pick and some needle nose pliers and grab what's left of the threads and pull it out like a big coil. Or sometimes you can pry between the threaded hole and the outside threads of the thin "tube" of what's left of the core of the bolt with a sharp punch and cave it in so you can pull it out. The heat of drilling and all the oil getting in there helps loosen it up. I also soak the thing in penetrating oil the night before. The hard part is getting the pilot hole centered and keeping it straight, but once you start moving up in bit sizes it gets easy. If it's a blind hole, at least when you drill the pilot hole through it, that gives you a path to dump penetrating oil down inside to reach the bottom of the threads. Just make sure you drill exactly down the center of the bolt and have the drill aiming perfectly straight and use lots of cutting oil.

I hate drilling out broken bolts, so when I take old stuff apart, I go pretty gingerly with the wrench and try to get a feel for whether it's stuck or not before I pull too hard on the wrench. If it feels stuck, I'll douse it with penetrating oil (like Gibb's Brand) and tap it a few times with a hammer, and then leave it for the next day. Sometimes just sort of wiggling back and forth on the wrench will start to break it free. It seems like if you're really patient you'll be a lot less likely to shear off the bolt head. If it feels like there's no way in hell it's going to come out, then I might hit it with a torch and put wax or more oil and leave it some more. If I know it's going to shear off, sometimes I'll just center punch the bolt head and drill down through the middle of the whole bolt.

But I'd rather drill it out than mess with those stupid "easy outs". Those things seem hopeless to me.

 

Hello!

Once i had the same problem, except i think it was 11 bolts on one
side of an 8BA engine. I ended up drilling them out with a hand drill,
i drilled them first with a small bit, then step by steb, til i eneded up with merly seeing the treads. Then i was able to pick the remainings of the first treads, so i get inn with a right size treader.
Was a hell of a job, but didnt need any heli coils
Good luck,

Br
Kjell

Taildragger&fenderless

 

what i do is use my mig to weld on the end of the broken stud till its just proud of the block, then i take a piece of 16ga about 1" x 4" and drill a hole near one end the same size of the stud, then i place it over the stud and weld it on, i leave it cool down and spray it with penatrating oil, then i start trying to wiggle it using the long end of the 16ga as a handle, wiggle wiggle wiggle, if you can get it to move even just a little you got it made, dont force it jst back and forth, i once took 3 hours to pull out the water pump bolt on a ford 302.

 

I always had problems with broken bolts and taps til i went to the muffler shop. I had a broken bolt in my cast iron manifold. The muffler man blew it out with the torch, chased the threads with a tap, and went on. The cast takes a ****load of heat to melt, where broken bolts and taps melt away. I've used the cutting torch ever since.