I got a 1966 Mustang with a 289 2-barrol. It started overheating so I took out the thermastat. Problem is I broke the head off the bolt (one on top) on the thermastat housing. Now I'm left with a 1/4" nub stuck in the engine. I tried a pair of vise-grips but was just grinding metal off the nub so I decided to stop that.
What is a good way to get the stupid bolt-nub out of the engine? Any special tools? What do you do when this happens?
There are a couple or three tactics..... all require a certain amount of skill/dexterity/experience. By far the easiest (tools permitting) would be to carefully MIG a nut to the nub sticking out....... allow everything to cool to hand warm before trying to remove the remnant. The manner requiring the least tools would have us grinding the offending fastener flat, carefully centre-punching the exact centre of the bolt and drilling all the way through the centre of the bolt so that all that is left is precious little more than the threads of the bolt. The need to drill straight and accurately should be pretty evident.
Both of these methods harbour a good deal of risk to the manifold. There isn't a great deal of metal around this bolt to play with and, IIRC, the hole is blind..... i.e. it doesn't go all the way through into the water passage.
You might find a wrecking yard manifold for cheap or remove the manifold and find a capable tech to remove the bolt. Additionally, you might try removing the bolt yourself but I would rate the possibility of the "Oh, shit" factor to be relatively high.... YMMV
-- Jim Warman snipped-for-privacy@telusplanet.net
You can buy bolt extractors. They are a conical tool with a fine thread on them. They come in a set of 3 or 4 usually. You grind the end of the bolt flat, center punch the bolt, and drill in with the recommended sized drill bit. You then screw in the extractor (anti-clockwise) nice and slow, and the remaining bolt should unscrew itself. This usually takes a bit of practice to avoid snapping the tool in the bolt (then you're really in the sh*t!) But....If you put plenty of WD40 or the like on the part, heat well with a gas lamp (butane lamp) and just for good measure give it one or two good whacks with a carefully placed hammer, you shouldn't have too much trouble!
Let us know how you get on!
a écrit dans le message de news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...
Cuss and swear a lot, drink a beer or three, and ten I grab the drill and ez outs. Speaking of EZ outs does anyone else find that name misleading?
MadDAWG
Patience is the first tool in the arsenal. You're lucky you have the nub sticking out. Jim's MIG idea is a good one, but if that isn't doable for you, your best bet is heat. Get an oxy/acet torch and heat the remainder of the bolt carefully RED hot ( do not burn it ) let it cool. Repeat this process. You could try to quench the part with cold water quickly too. The idea is to heat cycle the two parts to break the bond between them. Get GOOD vice grips. Clamp it on as hard as you can, so tight it hurts your hand to squeeze them ( wear gloves!) try working the bolt back a forward in a rocking motion.....patience.... Good Luck. If you don't have access to torches, Bernz-o-matic sell a cheap OXY MAP set that works well ( saved my ass a few times). Don't bother with propane, it isn't hot enough. StuK
P.S. if you get it out........ ANTISEIZE!!!!
What is a good way to get the stupid bolt-nub out of the engine? Any special tools? What do you do when this happens?
Get a propane torch and heat up the manifold, that should let you get it out with vise grips. Otherwise, take it as an omen to get a new manifold and upgrade to 4bbl carb...
My friend has a tool where it drills a small hole into the actual screw & pulls it out... rendering the screw completely useless (but your bolt already is).. I can't remember the name though :/.
-Mike
Very!
Yeah, I would rename them E*$#!@@@Fu$$outs...
All of the other suggestions given are good ones,. The method that has worked for me in the past was to break out my dremel with some cutting discs and made 4 cuts to the tip of the bolt effectively rendering it into a square. It's then a simple job for the vise-grips.
Good luck.
when you get it out dont use a bolt that is that long.. probably bottomed out and that is why it was stuck in the closed postion.... and it so hard to remove....
Why don't some people post back after a question like this? Happens all the time
I would love to read "I tried this or that and it worked, or didn't and I had to do that or this"
Kate
He is probably still working on it. I would be.
I always take it as "no news is good news". Meaning that one of the ideas that were given worked.
After doing much research on the net I got scared because of all the people who said they broke the bit or EZ-out off in the bolt. Also, even though it was the top bolt on the thermostat housing it still wasn't easy to get to. I would have had to remove allot of stuff to get a drill down to it properly. Drilling would have been a last resort!
Because there was still a 1/4" nub of a bolt sticking out I simply soaked it in oil for a day and hit it with a hammer a few times and heated it with a propane torch a few times to loosen it (it was frozen solid). It took all day. I finally was able to remove it with some vise-grips.
I really didn't want to do any drilling so I probably would have continued oiling, hitting, and heating up the bolt until I broke off the bolt-nub. Then I would drill and use an EZ-out. Thank god it didn't come to that!
glad you got it to move ponyboy... sometimes with a little help you can do anything... so thats all we have to learn is not to tighten it too much and dont use bolts too long for the blind hole...
Thanks for posting the results! It's great to know how problems are solved, makes it much easier the next time something happens, not so much experimentation :) Glad to hear that you got it out!
Kate
| >I would love to read "I tried this or that and it worked, or didn't and I | >had to do that or this" | >
| >Kate | | After doing much research on the net I got scared because of all the people who | said they broke the bit or EZ-out off in the bolt. Also, even though it was the | top bolt on the thermostat housing it still wasn't easy to get to. I would have | had to remove allot of stuff to get a drill down to it properly. Drilling would | have been a last resort! | | Because there was still a 1/4" nub of a bolt sticking out I simply soaked it in | oil for a day and hit it with a hammer a few times and heated it with a propane | torch a few times to loosen it (it was frozen solid). It took all day. I | finally was able to remove it with some vise-grips. | | I really didn't want to do any drilling so I probably would have continued | oiling, hitting, and heating up the bolt until I broke off the bolt-nub. Then I | would drill and use an EZ-out. Thank god it didn't come to that! | |
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