Last night I found myself trying to pull a supercharger bracket off of a Brand-X... it was held on by allen head cap screws and of course all of them were pretty mangled and one of them stripped completely. Obviously the one that would have been the most inconvenient to drill out. I had a triple square bit the right size, so I hammered that into the head and that stripped as well. I seriously considered taking a Sawzall to it and just buying another bracket. Before I started hacking and slicing though, I stopped at Sears and bought a set of the "bolt out" extractors. I got the good, impact rated ones because these bolts are probably either 8.8 or 12.9. I kind of had a suspicion that these wouldn't work but I figured it was worth a try because my only other option besides the sawzall was starting to remove the front end sheetmetal so I could get a straight shot at the head with a drill. Well guess what - it worked! I'm pretty happy, $60 poorer, but happy. The only downside is that I didn't get to take a Sawzall to this POS car... I was hoping to have it out of my garage a week ago. Well, it
*was* out, but the supercharger started making some pretty scary noises literally not five miles after I thought I was done (swapping out the headlights for E-codes, of all things... nothing to do with the engine at all!)After I bypass the supercharger so the car can still be driven, I get to replace the wiper switch, which also failed while I was working on the headlights. I don't think this car likes me.
nate