Broken bolt

[WyoSyclone]

Well, I've been going over my Sy with factory manuals just making sure everything is tight, adjusted right, etc.

Since I've had it, it's had the loud ticking noise. I bought a stethescope and found the ticking come from the injectors, and decided to adjust the rails and injectors up a little bit. The rear bolt loosened just fine.... went to loosen the front bolt and it snapped almost the second I put force against it. So, I imagine whoever put it together got gorilla-like with the wrench.

I thought no big deal, I've removed plenty of broken bolts. I went down and bought a couple of different types of easy-outs, drilled the center of the bolt and tried to budge the remains. Not even a budge.

I soaked it with CP penetrating oil, then WD40, then back to CP. I did this for two days and took my heat shrink gun and heat the aluminum up repeatedly - that usually at least breaks the crud loose.

Well, long story short - all that did nothing. To top it off, I went out tonight to try one more time with the easy out and murphy's law took over - I broke the tip of the easy out off!!! :rant: :rant:

So, now I'm stuck not being able to get the tip of the easy-out, out of the bolt. Everybody knows you can't drill through an easy-out. Does anyone have any ideas??

I know I can't drive it like this cuz the injector could pop up out of the bung and spray fuel and cause a fire.

Anybody got some helpful words? Even if I took the manifold off, I still don't see a way to fix it.

Arrghh.

 

[jwaller]

Re: Broken bolt

if the manifold was on a mill you could fix it pretty quickly. drill a big hole weld it over and start over with a new hole in the right place and new threads.

BTW the stock injectors tick like mad and thats normal. syclone rails are adjustable and should really be left alone. they took the adjustment slots out of the ty rails for this reason.

 

[SY2932]

Re: Broken bolt

I have to deal with frozen fasteners at work quite a bit on tooling that has been heat cycled many thousand times. The best trick to getting out a stuck fastener is to take a small punch and strike it smartly a few times dead center. Easy-outs are like taps, very hard but brittle. Chances are if you do what I just mentioned. you will be able to break it up enough to remove it. After you get it out, get your hands on a LEFT hand drill. Usually as soon as it penetrates the metal, it will back out the fastener. It amazes me everytime I get to use one... Outside of that, you can either drill it out in a mill as mentioned or have it EDM'd (Electrical Discharge Machined) out. Option #2 is NOT cheap.

 

[WyoSyclone]

Re: Broken bolt

Thanks for the tips guys.

I did manage to remove about half of the easy out by striking it dead center and shattering it. The rest is still down in there. I have just enough material (of the original bolt) around it that I think I can take a small drill bit and drill down beside the easy out - maybe that will relieve enough pressure on it to get it out.

I would have thought that when I center punched the bolt the first time that would have loosened it up, like Mike said. If I can remove the easy out, I may have to just drill a bigger hole and try to dig the remnants of the bolt out.... what a mess!

 

[WyoSyclone]

Re: Broken bolt

Well, turned out I could not extract that fuel rail bolt that broke off. I ended up fabricating a bracket the secures beneath the driver's front upper intake bolt. The bracket goes upwards and outward and rests against the side of the rail. Just because of the interference fit, the injectors can't move out of their seats. I went ahead and drilled a hole in the bracket and used a high temp zip tie to cinch the rail up against the bracket so there's no abrasion taking place. Someday when I take the engine out to do a major, I'll take the intake to a machine shop and put it on a mill and properly fix it.

Oh, and when I went to open the hood one last time for a a post fix-it inspection, the hood cable popped off of the mechanism at the latch! :rant: So, took the grille loose and got clearance to pop the hood and fixed that as well. Great way to spend a monday! :roll:

 

[mrweelr]

Re: Broken bolt

Find a guy that has a portable EDM. I had some broken exhaust manifold studs on my old Maxima in a very hard-to-reach place and I found someone to do this. It cost me $300 (very expensive), but he basically burned out the hardened studs without damaging the aluminum threads in the cylinder head. I did the same thing as you - broke off a couple of EZ outs. Hope to never go through anything like that again.

 

[WyoSyclone]

Re: Broken bolt

Hey Jeremy,
Thanks for the tip! I didn't know they make portable EDM's. I'm familiar with EDM from my old days of designing tools for injection molded parts.
I bet there's even somewhere near to me that can do that.

Thanks much!
...Rob