Subject: RE: Broken bolt Blues cont.
Author: Lannis
Date: Dec 27, 2004, 4:15 PM
Post ID: 1718117789
Cam Conklin wrote:
Thanks for all the input. Mark, what's an "easy out"? Remember, it's amature hour in my garage. Cam in NJ '74 Eldo Police |
Cam -
I'm no mechanical whiz myself, but I've been working on my own bikes for
35 years and have gathered some practical knowledge about a few things.
Here's one of them.
I'VE NEVER KNOWN ANYONE WHO MADE AN EZ-OUT WORK RIGHT! THEY'RE AN URBAN
LEGEND AT BEST! (This bold statement may bring a few success stories
out of the woodwork, but note that there's been none before this
challenge was issued!)
About every 10 years I forget this piece of wisdom and I buy another set
of EZ-outs, generally Craftsman. Usually I buy them after a bolt or
stud has snapped off in the hole, and I'm trying to buy a solution in an
optimistic attempt to solve the problem easily.
They never work.
By the time a bolt or stud is corroded so tightly into a hole that the
body actually shears off when you (carefully) try to remove it, ....it's
WAY too tight for that silly EZ-out to do any good.
Even after I carefully drill the right-sized, centered hole in the stud,
and carefully select the right EZ-out, and ease it down into the hole,
and carefully set it in place, one of three things happens, all of them
bad. (This is WORSE odds than throwing a forward pass in football,
where only three things can happen and two of the three are bad).
1) The EZ-out just spins in the soft metal of the grade 2 or less bolt
and reams out the hole to where no size will work right.
2) The EZ-out snaps off in the hard metal of the grade 3 or greater
bolt, and now you're really hosed and either have to abandon it or take
the whole thing apart and take it to an EDM vendor, who can remove it
with his electron-discharge machine, selectively fatiguing the metal
into powder and shards.
3) You carefully twist with the T-handle and make sure you're centered,
not applying any bending moment to the handle, and put a little more and
a little more torque on it, and experience (and the memory of your last
EDM bill) tells you to quit and try something else.
You would think that there would be a (4), "After gradually twisting
harder and harder, you suddenly feel the bolt or stud release from the
corrosion, and it twists cleanly out of the hole, leaving the threads
intact". Forget it. (4) ONLY HAPPENS IN DREAMS, NEVER IN YOUR SHOP.
The left-hand twist drill bit has a high probability of working, as does
the idea of using a Dremel Moto-Tool (a very handy thing that no shop
should be without) to grind, cut, or otherwise work a slot into the end
of the stud, and then use a hand-held hammer impact driver with a
straight screwdriver bit to take the bolt out. Usually the combination
of heat from drilling, or impact from the hammer driver, will help take
the pieces apart.
Good luck! and be sure to let us know how you eventually deal with it.
Necessity is often the mother of invention....
Lannis