“Head” bolt stuck into the head!!!

[outdoorsman310]

why were you torquing the head bolts? the way i usually get bolts out is with a dremel and a flathead but i think you have to take the head off and i would worry about getting grit in the engine! i am no expert on this.

Topic

[moparfan]

Quoted From college man:

if your drilling straight then let the bolt crumble.
use a shop vac to keep removing the shavings.
just stay straight and not to deep. what you could
do is mark the drill bit with tape. make the tape
a little shorter than the broken bolt.

+1 to that statement^^ a shop is going to do the same thing anyways. just be care full not to hit threads.

[maximus20895]

I called the shop they said they would do it for $45 and towing is $100. So now I have that option if need be.

I used a magnet to get the shavings out. I’ll try to put tape on it the drill bit…never heard of that before…so I don’t understand how that works?

Could you please explain this?

Thanks

[Mike]

Tape makes sure you dont drill too far down…the tape acts as a guide…when you drill to the tape, you stop….construction workers use this method too…there are also special bits that do this as well.

[outdoorsman310]

i would go to the shop because i suck at drilling and would end up drilling into the aluminum.

[college man]

Quoted From maximus20895:

I called the shop they said they would do it for $45 and towing is $100. So now I have that option if need be.

I used a magnet to get the shavings out. I’ll try to put tape on it the drill bit…never heard of that before…so I don’t understand how that works?

Could you please explain this?

Thanks

according to the broken bolt picture. you have a little over a
1/2 inch broken. measure up a 1/2 from the bottom of the drill bit.
use masking tape or electrical tape to the 1/2 mark. now only drill
to the bottom of the tape.

[yarddog1950]

Go back to page 3 and read Beefy’s advice. That’s what I would do. I’ll tell you why. Eric and College Man and the Corvette fellow speak from experience and offer good advice too.
I had to deal with this problem with a DOHC aluminum head in the early 1970’s, and I made sure I never had to deal with it again. I invested a lot of time and what seemed to be real money back then (don’t ask) trying to get the broken bolt out of an aluminum cyl head before I found I should have pulled the head off straight away. I think you ought to pull the head, and learn how to do this. It’s not that difficult and the knowledge will be beneficial to you for decades (unless internal combustion engines disappear).
Having broken a cam tower bolt myself, I became the guy to help out every “new B” that broke one subsequently. I have not worked on late model DOHC engines much, but I worked on them when very few mechanics were willing to do so.
The head will probably have to be removed. Why waste time?
There is another skill beginners need to acquire. When you use a forum like this, beware of advice that seems merely to be very well thought out. When I was 20 something, I was full of advice like that – brilliant stuff! (I was full of it, all-right.) But I hadn’t tested much of it against reality.
When someone tells you to do such and such, and he doesn’t tell you that it worked for him, that’s because HE HASN’T TRIED IT YET. Old guys may be just as willing to share great ideas, but young and old, careful teachers will tell you how the remedy has been tested, or how it has not.

[Mike]

+1 on yarddog1950s post

[maximus20895]

Well, I bought a right angle drill and got the right size left handed drill bit, but every time I was drilling there were more metal pieces everywhere. It’s like it was disintegrating. I’m not sure what to do other than take it to a shop.

[Mike]

Take it to a shop or pull the cams out…i would stop wasting time and do it the right way.

[college man]

if your drilling straight then let the bolt crumble.
use a shop vac to keep removing the shavings.
just stay straight and not to deep. what you could
do is mark the drill bit with tape. make the tape
a little shorter than the broken bolt.

[twiggy]

I agree with the prev 2 posts, if you don’t want to pull the head then spend the $40 plus $100 for tow to have it done. $140 will be a drop in the bucket compared to what you’re in for if things go wrong.

[skim3544]

At this time I agree that you pretty much tried everything and it is time to pull the head. It isn’t that difficult – just takes time.

[EricTheCarGuy]

Just curious if you removed that cam retainer to access the bolt, I would suspect it would have broken off almost flush with the head if that’s not the case I can understand the difficulty you’re having.

[maximus20895]

I did remove the cam retainer. The bolt was 3 inches down, but since I removed the cam retainer it shortened the length to 2 inches since the cam retainer is about an inch.

So as it stands, it’s about 2 inches down so I can’t see if its’ flush with the head or not. I did some rough calculations and I would say it’s about 1/8 of inch above the head, I’m not sure.

I tried everything I know to get the bolt off, short of removing the rocker assembly and cam shaft since I don’t have that knowledge and frankly extremely intimidated by doing it so I just towed it to a shop yesterday afternoon. They said they could get the bolt out for around $45.

I’ll keep you guys updated. Thanks for all the help!

[EricTheCarGuy]

That seems like a very reasonable price, keep us posted.

[Author]

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