HELP broke something

Oh whoops.
I didn’t see the date lol

 

But I do agree with you the "HELP" title may just be a "tad" over dramatic for the issue at hand.

P.S. Howdy neighbor! (I'm in the STL area.)

 

What!!! Hell yeah! You in the St. Louis thread?

 

You talking about the one over in the Mid West Regional Discussion forum? I lurk there from time to time.

 

Yeah dat one.
Nice.

 

I believe whats there is a hole in the sheet metal with a sorta nut sorta spot welded on. I looked at rivet nuts, or rivserts, or whatever they're called years ago. At that time, you needed to buy a special tool, kinda like a pop rivet thing but beefier.

Extracting a broken bolt is less difficult than it sounds. Even if you do break off the extractor or drill bit in the hole, it's not the end of the world in this situation. I broke a tap off in a intake manifold bolt hole while doing a helicoil repair on the hole, that sucked. In this situation, if something breaks off, move on to plan b.

I've done broken bolt extraction hundreds of times so I'll provide some pointers. I'm by no means the all out bestest professional extractor extraordinaire. But I have helped others who were just plain stuck. If someone wants to add something or say don't do it like that, I won't be offended.

If you know it broke off because of rust, letting it soak with liquid wrench or pb blaster or wd40 will help. Sometimes all you need are some very small needle nose pliers to pinch and twist, even if no part is sticking out of the hole, you can grip a pointy part of the break. I bought something called vampliers specially designed for this, but it's more for if some of it is sticking out. Centerpunch and drill (reverse drill bit is best) close to the center as possible. If your centerpunch mark ended up off center, get the drill started, then angle so your drilling into the meat of the broken piece instead of into the threaded area. Sometimes the reverse drill bit will catch and back the broken piece out. Wd40 while drilling will help work the penetrant into the threads as the broken piece heats up from drilling. After drilling, if it looks like you can go up to the next size, drill to the next size. What type of extractor, there are a few choices. Some like the straight flute type, I don't, never had much luck with them. My go to is Irwin 11117, comes with 5 reverse bits and spiral extractors. The smallest drill bit snaps pretty easy so move up to the next size once you have a hole started. If it's not budging, I'll go to the multispline set

$77 Irwin 53227 IRWIN Screw Extractor Set, Hex Head, Multi-Spline, 25-Piece (53227)

Irwin 53227. Failure is rare with the multisplines, and you can use a regular socket. If using the spiral ones, they make tap sockets that work super,

$33 Lisle 70500 Tap Socket Set

Lisle 70500. Irwin 3095001 tap sockets suck. Temptation to use an adjustable wrench, or tap handle, I've done it, and got it to work, the other tools work much better. With the extractor, I'll use what suits the situation. Tap socket, extensions, spinner handle, T bar, ratchet. If you know it's going to be a fight to get it, try heating the metal around the broken bolt after drilling the hole, then a tiny bit of liquid wrench on the threads avoiding getting it in the hole, I'll use a tiny screwdriver, liquid wrench on the screwdriver, then touch it to the threads. The extractor, push in hard, and gently twist, you'll see it dig in, twist harder until common sense kicks in telling you it's not moving and going to break. I've done things like put a pry bar against my ratchet, tied the pry bar so it has tension on the ratchet, walk away, come back later to find it moved. Or switch to the multispline. Or ignored common sense and twisted harder. If all attempts fail, now it's time to think about drill completely out and run a tap in. Now you'll be happy you drilled it centered. Patience helps, getting the centerpunch and hole centered in the beginning is pretty critical. I've taken the die grinder to ones that broke off wierd so I can get the centerpunch centered. Good luck.

 

I popped the hood today to check oil. There I see the same pigtail ground attached near the battery that’s causing problems. Further back towards the cab are 2 unused threaded bolt holes, at least that’s what mine has. The pic shows a folded rag on top of the fuse box pointing at one of the holes between the fuse box and alarm siren. Looks like to utilize one of those holes you would need to make a new longer cable, looks like #4 cable, you’ll need a couple different size lugs, a small one to attach to the battery terminal bolt, a bigger one for the new bolt hole. Or buy a premade one and get creative with washers. Either route, again I’d suggest you clean down to bare metal so the lug bolted to sheet metal is touching bare instead of painted metal. Before calling it good, I would disconnect both battery terminals, then test to make sure the connection is good with a vom.

Yes I know the battery is old but, it tests good still.

 

Out of courtesy been meaning to provide an update (annoys me when folks don't provide closure on threads/posts), but more so figured it might be useful for future reference to any newbies dealing with this same or similar issue.

First, shout out to @Waasheem for all the input!

I ended up drilling out the broken bolt using a left hand drill bit set. The bolt size is a M6x1 so in order to get a decent & centered pilot hole going thru it I started with an automatic center punch, followed by a center hole drill bit (5/64"), then a left hand drill bit (5/64"). From there I worked my way up in drill bit sizes until I finally reached a 3/16" bit which caused the bolt remains to catch and back out (it squealed like a pig the whole way out ). I then ran a tap (M6x1) thru the hole as the threads were a little mangled. Note, at the time my backup options in case this failed were to just drill & tap a larger hole or use one of the two aft unused threaded bolt holes that @Waasheem mentions/shows in his post above.

Haven't installed the battery yet as I'm currently working on other stuff with the truck, but when I do I'm leaning towards face-to-face grounding through the wire terminal and sheet metal panel instead of relying on the few measly bolt threads in the panel. If I do go that direction I'll prep both mating surfaces for electrical bonding, install the bolt with anti seize, and then overcoat (seal) the connection with paint for corrosion prevention.

 

As the great Andrew Martin said, ”One is glad to be of service”.

Squealed like a pig, I’ve broken many drill bits off when that would happen, luck was on your side. I’m glad it got resolved for you.

 

Thanks for the end result post. All to often the solutions or lack thereof never make in back in the thread.

 

EZ out drill set.

 

I made sure I was careful and went at it slow. As you sort of alluded to in your earlier post, using common sense and "feel" you can tell whether it'll budge or you need to back off.

 

I had a set of ez outs. I stopped using them due to their low success rate. They work ok on smaller fasters that aren’t too small or corroded or rusty.

 

Agree. Generally speaking they are better suited towards free spinning fasteners instead of corroded/frozen ones. Perfect example for their use would be the classic case of a fastener who's head was snapped off due to over torque (or it was made of butter).