Removing sheared bolt?

[aridon99]

I tried to remove the ancient oval exhaust tips from my 91 and one bolt head sheared right off The 2nd tip came off just fine. Any advice on getting the first tip off? Can I just twist really hard since I'm planning on getting new tips anyhow? Thanks. -John

 

[aluminiumdream]

i have dealt with this many times and have learned some great tricks that may help u, but my first question is:

Is the end of the bolt sticking out enough that you can grab it with a pair of needle nose vise grips? IF so, do this:

use a hand held propane torch and heat up the remainder of the bolt. Get it hot enough. Dont be afraid of heating it up too much, it wont melt. now grab a glass of cold water and once you feel its as hot as its going to be, cool the bolt with the water. by cooling it quickly, you are shocking it and breaking the seal that the rust has created between the threads. it should come out no problem with the vise grips.

This has worked for me numerous times with no trouble at all.

NOW, if there is not enough to grab with your vise grips do this:

Heat it and cool it just like the above instructions, but instead of using vise grips, find a stubby flat head screw driver. if you have a grinder available, very lightly sharpen the end so its sharp and flat. Or better yet use a small chisel, if you have one. now use the sharp end and hold it to one side of the bolt. lightly tap the chisel with a hammer and hit it in the direction as if you want to back it out. Once you deform the tip of the bolt slightly, this will provide a "seat" for the chisel to sit in every time you tap it. you will walk your chisel around with the bolt as it starts to move. I hope this makes sense. if not im sorry.

I deal with broken bolts all the time and the chisel method works great only if the seal of rust between the threads is broken.

Good luck.

 

[aridon99]

Thank you for taking the time to write the advice.

I got the bolt out tonight with my father's help. It turns out he has a set of these "damaged screw and bolt extractor" bits tucked deep in his garage. If you google that phrase, you'll see that these bits look like drill bits with a fine reverse thread for about .75 to 1 inch at the tip. The way it works is, you drill a small hole in to the core of the bolt. You then use the right size extractor bit and start twisting and driving in to the hole. It will bite in to the hole you drilled and start to back out the core. It worked as advertised although backing it out took a long handled monkey wrench and slow, careful elbow grease. I did have to sharpen my small drill bit several times as the bolt was made of pretty darn hard metallic material. I'm glad there was a grinding wheel handy

I was pretty happy with this outcome when I realized I need to change my rims and don't have the wheel lock key from the last owner
Wheel shops wanted $20-25 to remove each lug. A simple search on the internet and found "WHEEL LOCK LUG NUT REMOVER" kit on ebay. It pretty much works like the extractor bit, but is a socket that grabs the lug from the outside and bites in to it with a reverse thread It's funny how the same theme keeps hitting me.