I was working on my mom's old beater car, and I broke one of the thermostat bolts. It must be corroded because it was coming out, but had a lot of resistance. It wasn't cross threaded because I'm the one who put it in last. It's sticking out maybe 1/4 inch. It's on the intake manifold. I tried one of those things where you drill a hole and twist this giant screw looking thing into it, but it just broke off in the bolt when I tried to twist it. I had my mom get a lawnmower repair guy to go out there and weld a nut onto the broken stud, but she said he wouldn't do it??? Does anyone have any ideas of what I can do? I'm going over there this weekend and would like to get it out. I can remove the intake manifold if I need to. Thanks for any tips.

 

Spray some liguid wrench or equivilant on it, let it soak in for a while, and try a bolt extractor again.

 

PB blaster!!!

If you can try move in any direction most the time you can work it back and forth to free it up.... welding a nut on it is a good idea too.

 

^^^^^ Kroil, break free, tri flo etc is your friend. In this situation, Kroil would be great, but for the past few years Ive been using break free or tri flo with great success.

Should have tried that BEFORE you broke the screw extractor, caus you aint drillin that thing out. A buddy helping me rebuild my 4wheeler broke one off in the bolt, and i couldnt even drill it out with a cobalt bit, titanium bits were even worse than the cobalt.

If you have 1/4" sticking you, you should be able to get it. Just soak it with some type of penetrant, and use a pair of Vise-Grips and it should come out.

 

well, Matt summed up just about everything I had to say... so I'll just agree: Kroil, the original penetrating lubricant is great stuff - a newer product that seems to be working well is PB Blaster. PB Blaster is more widely available on the consumer market, whereas Kroil is harder to find. You can get PB Blaster at any auto part store right next to the crappy WD40. Last time I saw either Kroil and Triflo in a consumer based place it was near the cleaning supplies at a gun store (Jim's Firearms in B.R. carries it)

 

shouldnt have drilled a hole in it if you had a 1/4" sticking out. if it broke flush then it would have been ok to drill it. with a 1/4 sticking out you still had a chance to shock the bolt by hitting the top of it with a punch and hammer.. which would loosen the corrosion. the lubricants mentioned are your friend use it anytime when taking things apart that may have corrosion around them.. that spiral looking thing is called a spiral easy out, i prefer the tapered square type. tensil strength is a lot higher.. as of now seems like youre in a whirl of **** cause of the broken easy out do you still have 1/4 inch sticking out, might wanna try some vice grips and see if you can turn it, try going back and forth. like mentioned. but first you'll need to try and get the broken easy out, out first.. if you do that then you can then drill the hole the same size as the previuos hole and use a tap to clean up the threads

good luck and hope you get it out !!!!

 

Hey guys I just looked at a ruler, and maybe 1/4 inch was not accurate. More like 1/8 inch. I can get visegrips on it, but it was mutilating the bolt. I'll try some of that penetrating oil you guys mentioned, then the visegrips again. Thanks.

 

The only thing that is going to drill through your deal now is a carbide drill bit, or a carbide tipped drill bit.

 

I've always found that straight jaw vise grip pliers grip the best on something like that!

 

well if it was me i'd weld a nut to the top of the bolt and use a wrench to get it out.