busted bolt removal help needed

found a broken bolt in the th400 to 203 adaptor. I tried welding a nut on for removal twice and failed. tried drilling and failed. This is a hardened steel bolt that has been there since 1979. Ideas?

That looks like the crossmember mount. is it needed? The doubler has a mount doesn't it?

never mind just looked at pics. is there enough there to get vise grips on. heat the case and not the bolt and see if it will break free. it looks like its in there pretty good drilling it out might be the only way

rockdw72 wrote:

That looks like the crossmember mount. is it needed? The doubler has a mount doesn't it?

Yes needed. It actually has the bolt pattern for the tranny and 203 on it. Bolt 6 circle pattern onto tranny and then bolt 203 onto the adaptor. The 203 wont bolt directly to the tranny without it.

Got this interesting chart from the creeps.
Some of you might appreciate this. Machinist's Workshop magazine tested penetrants for break out torque on rusted nuts.

They are below, as forwarded by an ex-student and professional machinist, Bud Baker.

They arranged a subjective test of all the popular penetrants with the control being the torque required to remove the nut from a "scientifically rusted" environment.

Penetrating oil ..... Average load

None ...................... 516 pounds

WD-40 ................... 238 pounds

PB Blaster ............... 214 pounds

Liquid Wrench ......... 127 pounds

Kano Kroil .............. 106 pounds

ATF-Acetone mix.......53 pounds

The ATF-Acetone mix was a "home brew" mix of 50 - 50 automatic transmission fluid and acetone. Note the "home brew" was better than any commercial product in this one particular test. Our local machinist group mixed up a batch and we all now use it with equally good results. Note also that "Liquid Wrench" is about as good as "Kroil" for about 20% of the price.

got some additional advise.

1. heat broken bolt red hot
2. weld another 3/4 nut onto broken bolt
3. apply acetone/atf to other side of bolt
4. let cool
5. heat adaptor to expand it off the bolt
6. try to remove again.

Bill i would do num 5

use snap on easy out with heat and liquid wrench.

It blows my mind that the average mechanic does not own a set of left handed drill bits. They are really not that expensive for a basic set and they really are worth there weight in gold. Its one of those "have the right tool for the job and it will pay for it's self the first time you use it" kind of things.

I got my journeyman's license in the Newport News Shipyards and learned very quickly how to remove seawater encrust bolts out of ships equipment.

My recommendation:
Often time the simplest method is the best

Penetrating oil
Vice grips

If there is an edge you can work with a chisel and hammer some times you can actually walk the stud out

If not:

Penetrating oil
Grind head flat
Prick punch
Center punch
Drill

Two things "USUALLY" or "SHOULD" happen.
1. If you can drill it just right you should be able to drill it to the crest of the hole threads and use a scribe to collapse the shell of the bolt.
2. During the drilling process the stud will walk its self out

For the really stubborn ones we had a portable EDM machine that was bad ass.


I just want to be perfectly clear that I am not bagging on anyone. People seem to get butt hurt whenever I post.[left]

i didn't even know about left handed drill bits till a guy at work showed them to me. I thought it was a joke like a metric adjustible wrench at first. They are pretty nice to have around.

tried the vice grips and even the chisel and hammer with no luck. Ended up drilling it out in stepwise fashion. Was a little off center so looks like I'll be using a bolt through the other side. Thanks for all the advice. i will be gettting a set of left handed bits from the success I've read about on pirate.

bill you jinkzed me. i went to take my tire off today and rounded off a lug nut. So I welded an old socket to it and hit with the air gun again. this time the lug nut broke off below the welds just were it starts to recess into the wheel. So now I really don't have to much of the lug nut left to mess with. So should i just try to drill out the wheel stud till i'm able to break it off?

that sucks

i know, f'ed up part is non of those lug nuts went on hard like it was cross threaded. So i don't know why it don't want to come off.

take the other lugs off and see if the tiny piece left will break off when you pull on the opposite end of the tire?

na, shes solid its probly 3/8" or more of nut left

Sometimes a pointed air chisel will spin them loose we have that problem with those stupid locking nuts all the time if not get the smoke wrench out