Well,

I had everything painted and ready to go, so I was going to mount the air hat. WELL, I was using the factory bracket (requires no S curve bolt to mount) and I messed up.

At first I was thinking, "Won't my milled fastman require a different (smaller) bolt for this?" Because the bracket was just a hex head bolt. Well, i was correct. I was ratcheting it in, and it started getting harder. I should have stopped there because I was torquing on an aluminum TB. But I only needed 2 more MM of torque.

I broke it off in my fastman.

Anyone know how I should go about this? I don't remember the size of the bolt for drilling and tapping, but I have a full drill bit set. I was thinking of just drilling it out and using some JB weld.

Looking back, I should have gotten a straight piece of threaded bar (I had a short piece with a nut) and dialed it in.

How should I re-drill and tap?

--Dan

BTW, this just set me back a week because I have no time left today or tomorrow and I just hate doing this during the week.

 

The S bolt is 1/4" by 20 thread.

That sucks dude, go slow drilling it out. You might try drilling With a reverse 1/8" bit and see if you can get it to bite and back out.

 

uggghhhh that sucksss.... I know how it feels man, good luck with getting it out

I don't suppose there's enough bolt sticking out to grab with vice grips right? That's be too easy lol... Drill it and get some bolt extractors, it's not like it's a rusty old seized bolt so it shouldn't be too bad

 

How far is the bolt down in the hole? If it's fairly shallow, try using an easy-out to back it out.

 

You've probably bottomed out the stud, and galled the aluminum threads as well.

Simple extraction methods won't work, and if you don't have a way to precisely drill out the stud, you could really screw yourself...pun intended.

If you don't have the proper means to accurately drill the hole, a machine shop may be able to help. It will cost you, but most lessons like this do.

They'll drill it out with the proper "tap drill" (not a 1/4 inch), and that should leave the threads intact. Then they may be able to pick the threads clean and run a chaser tap, or retap the hole, or if avalible, helicoil the hole.

 

A buddy of mine has a weird tool for this and for the life of me I can't remember what its called. He's a metal worker and he runs into this problem all the time. It almost looks like a mini pitchfork w/ sharp points. It has a ratchet tip on the other end. All you do is rest it on the broken bolt and tip it with a hammer and it creates little dimples and then you drill the small holes about 1/16 into the bolt and reinsert the pitchfork. Backs it out all the time. I sure you could rig something up to do the same thing.

 

That's an easy-out. I use them at the shop all the time for snapped bolts.

 

I love easy if it works. What else could be done?

 

can you make a little cut in it so you can use a srew driver and back it out?

 

Seldom have to drill bolts at work when we snap them but they tend to be 9/16th (print press/folder parts)
If the broken bolt left a ridge/line when it snapped thats usually best.
I use a pin punch & tap it (straight up & down) off center but not so far that its close to the threads.
Once a small dimple is there I will then angle the punch to about 50-70 deg & tap it out counter clock wise.
Dia of this bolt & being in alum. maybe a bit trickier especially if you did bottom out the bolt.
May have to get a machine shop to do it as mentioned