I was changing my thermostat out and one of the bolts broke off from the thermostat housing to the time belt housing. I have no way of accessing this area where the bolt is broken off. Any suggestions? I can't get a drill in this area and the bolt is all jagged inside anyway.

I am thinking I will need to go buy a drill that will fit and do my best at drilling it out and hope for the best???

 

Is there a little bit sticking out? If you can some how get a bit in there, you could use an easy out. I think you should remove the brackets in front of it. I believe you can drill at them easy but you need to remove a few things to have easy access... That or you will be buying a new intake. You could do this too,

Drill out the old bolt, die tap it larger, than drill the tstat a bit bigger and you are good.

 

Yea, like varsis said, assuming you have a 3.9, 5.2, or 5.9L engine (I've never worked on a 4.7L), once you remove the generator and disconnect the A/C compressor (do not, I repeat, do not disconnect the plumbing to the compressor, all you need to do is unbolt the compressor and temporarily relocate it) you will see the accessory drivesupport bracket. It'd held on with something like 7 bolts or so. If you remove that, it makes it very easy to access the thermostat area and both coolant temp sensors.
Oh, you'll need to remove the drive belt and idler pully, but the whole task (including removing the support bracket) doesn't take very long and it pretty easy.
Just make sure you torque everything back up good. Look in the FSM (available at the top of the section) for everything you need.

 

craftsman tools has a tool that is made for such problems...go to a sears store and ask them about it.

there is a tool called a grab-it too, it is specifically made to remove broken off bolts and screws

 

wow i thought I was the only one to ever do this. If you broke off one of the bolts that holds the radiator hose over the thermostat like I did, that bolt is stuck in the intake manifold and unless you get it out and re-tap it, it will never seal right. Use an EZ Out, it taps into the bolt and uses right hand threads so you can unscrew it. I wasnt lucky enough to get it out, so I ended up just taking off the entire manifold and buying a stage one manifold from hughes to replace it with. Whatever you do, you dont want to try and drill through it because you'll end up with metal shavings laying all through your intake and they'll go into the engine when you start it up the first time. That is why I just took it off. There is a walkthrough somewhere on the internet that shows you how to take off the manifold if thats what you end up doing.