Joined
·
454 Posts
Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any damage you do to anything should you decide to try any of my ideas, which is not recommended.
***************
Sometimes during the course of a repair you run into that one bolt that refuses to budge no matter what you do to it. Usually this bolt will eventually strip or break. Now a stripped bolt can still be easily removed, however a bolt which has broke off, that is a different story. In my situation, one of the bolts that goes through the alternator bracket, through the pump, and into the block, became frozen to the inside of the pump, but not into the block. The problem encountered was that the bolt had snapped half way down the hole and there was no way to weld anything onto it or v-grip it out.
After doing some searching online I've found a couple other people with similar problems but no real good tech on getting this bolt out without drilling or otherwise risking damage to the timing cover/engine block or having to re-tap/helicoil the threads. So I figured, hell I'll make one. First writeup so don't jump down my throat :thumbup
***************
You'll need an angle or a die grinder, a dremel with a cutting wheel, a pry bar, and a torch. (we used MAP gas)
***************
The goal is to cut out the area around the broken stud so the whole thing can be used as a surrogate bolt head to spin it out.
After the first cut, you can see the offending bolt a little bit, it's recessed about half an inch where it broke off.
![]()
You'll want to be VERY careful with this step, cutting off the ear itself. Don't go cutting all the way through into your block or timing cover, leave some metal so everything is still attached, I'll explain why later. [DONT FORGET TO WEAR GLOVES and EYE PROTECTION!]
![]()
This is where you want to be making your cuts, about a 90 degree angle around the stud. This pic is about as deep as we cut with the angle grinder. There's just maybe 1/8 inch of thickness left. [IF USING AN ANGLE GRINDER: Take a dremel with a cutting a wheel and notch the center of each cut slightly. This can be more precise and will help it crack later.]
![]()
We then took the torch and heated the area around the bolt repeatedly, between each heating pouring cold water onto the area to harden the metal, and thus cause it to become more brittle. We did this a couple times.
![]()
Once we were done heating we wedged the pry bar behind the water pump from above. Get the pry bar pushed in behind the pump as close to the cut area as possible, give a couple wiggles and some good brute force and it should crack right off.
Leaving this to spin right out.
![]()
As you can see, the bolt fused itself pretty damn good to the water pump. Whacking it with a 10lb sledge wouldn't even move it. :twak
I cannot stress enough the importance of being very careful with the cutting, check regularly to see how deep you've cut and how much farther you should go. Probably one of the more complicated ways to go about doing this but it worked without any damage so, why the hell not. :beer
***************
Sometimes during the course of a repair you run into that one bolt that refuses to budge no matter what you do to it. Usually this bolt will eventually strip or break. Now a stripped bolt can still be easily removed, however a bolt which has broke off, that is a different story. In my situation, one of the bolts that goes through the alternator bracket, through the pump, and into the block, became frozen to the inside of the pump, but not into the block. The problem encountered was that the bolt had snapped half way down the hole and there was no way to weld anything onto it or v-grip it out.
After doing some searching online I've found a couple other people with similar problems but no real good tech on getting this bolt out without drilling or otherwise risking damage to the timing cover/engine block or having to re-tap/helicoil the threads. So I figured, hell I'll make one. First writeup so don't jump down my throat :thumbup
***************
You'll need an angle or a die grinder, a dremel with a cutting wheel, a pry bar, and a torch. (we used MAP gas)
***************
The goal is to cut out the area around the broken stud so the whole thing can be used as a surrogate bolt head to spin it out.
After the first cut, you can see the offending bolt a little bit, it's recessed about half an inch where it broke off.
You'll want to be VERY careful with this step, cutting off the ear itself. Don't go cutting all the way through into your block or timing cover, leave some metal so everything is still attached, I'll explain why later. [DONT FORGET TO WEAR GLOVES and EYE PROTECTION!]
This is where you want to be making your cuts, about a 90 degree angle around the stud. This pic is about as deep as we cut with the angle grinder. There's just maybe 1/8 inch of thickness left. [IF USING AN ANGLE GRINDER: Take a dremel with a cutting a wheel and notch the center of each cut slightly. This can be more precise and will help it crack later.]
We then took the torch and heated the area around the bolt repeatedly, between each heating pouring cold water onto the area to harden the metal, and thus cause it to become more brittle. We did this a couple times.
Once we were done heating we wedged the pry bar behind the water pump from above. Get the pry bar pushed in behind the pump as close to the cut area as possible, give a couple wiggles and some good brute force and it should crack right off.
Leaving this to spin right out.
As you can see, the bolt fused itself pretty damn good to the water pump. Whacking it with a 10lb sledge wouldn't even move it. :twak
I cannot stress enough the importance of being very careful with the cutting, check regularly to see how deep you've cut and how much farther you should go. Probably one of the more complicated ways to go about doing this but it worked without any damage so, why the hell not. :beer
