cleaning up broken bolt problems

[sweetk30]

scored this dana 60 for parts a week ago .

its got bad gears and frozen calipers . broken home made studs for pass side leaf spring plate . and the driverside spring pad is all messed up .

but anyways figured i would show some of you that have asked before how to get the broken stuff out of the hole.

someone used threaded rod inplace of studs or bolts.

the rod that was left was bent up BAD . scary stuff other people do .

 

[sweetk30]

well with some heat from the cutting torch and big gal jug of cold water i heated up the rear all thread and area of the diff housing . then i drenched it in cold water to shock the rust loose. ( good old school trick )

then with little heat again and some vise grips and 4 lb hammer i got it right out .

 

[sweetk30]

next was the flush broken front one.

i took a grinder and skimmed the rust / junk / dirt off the top face . then with a die grinder and bit i cleaned up the jagged broken top face of the nub left .

then i took a big nut that was next size bigger than the broken bolt / nub and placed it over the top .

next i removed the nut and heated the area just like before and cold water shocked it . then i put some heat back in for pre-welding heat for this rusty area. next set the nut back on and used the big 220 lincoln mig and filled that nut up from the bottom to top starting at the center of the broken nub and working my way out and up .

 

[sweetk30]

ton's of heat got in that old cranky thing and i let it cool down no cold water for this part of the trick .



next was 1/2 inch ratchet and the socket to fit the nut and vary slow and carefully tapping till it cracked loose and then spun up and out .


and as you can see the nut was fused to the broken bolt / piece and made it easy to spin out and no damaged threads .

also found tons of dirt and junk in the rear hole that made the hole to short for full thread depth for strength .

always recheck hole depth / and clean to prevent bind up and or blow out of the hole . rtv is a big problem on rear diff hubs for pumpkin cover and ff hubs axle flange bolts.

and this was a fairly easy job to remove the bolts / studs broken bits if you have the tools . i had under 30 min in this job and no drilling / tapping / easy out's required.

 

[TheBeast_88K5]

Sweet.

 

[79rustyk10]

Ive used that trick a number of times. Works great.

 

[Stomis]

You cant beat welding a nut to broken stuff. I like to treat it like a tap and run it out, then back in a little, repeat if something is really nasty. Im gonna have to try the cold water shock trick. The other good trick is to wrap the top with a hammer and punch.

 

[84CUCV]

never hear of shocking it before. ill try it sometime

 

[sweetk30]

hammer shock trick even better is air hammer with button head .

i remove then chase hole / threads with tap . i dont wana get it restuck in the hole full of junk .

the cold water and air hammer trick work a lot for me on frozen bleader screws on calipers.

 

[diesel4me]

Too often most mechanics refuse to wait long enough after welding the nut on when using this method to remove busted off studs....it takes agood 5 minutes sometimes for the heat produced by welding the nut on,to soak into the area surrounding the threads and expand it ever so slightly--if your impatient and try spinning the nut off right away the thing will just shear off almost every time...

My shop teacher showed us a trick,after you weld the nut on,let it sit there until it is no longer glowing red,and put a wrench on it and apply steady even pressure to the wrench...after a while,anywhere from a minute to several minutes,the thermal expansion of the area around the stud will let the stud loosen,and the wrench will move suddenly...then it might be nessasary to re-heat that area with a torch again,in order to get it out all the way without breaking it off again...an impact gun usually works best to remove the stud,but you need a gentle trigger finger and an impact with a good air control or it'll just snap it right off again...the candle wax trick helps on jobs like this too...

 

[Z71paramedic]

Nice writeup

 

[bigred88]

Could've used that this past weekend. Then again, I would need a welder and to know how to weld...

That's ok, I just spent a few hours doing the whole drill a really small hole, then drill a slightly larger hole, then break a few drill bits, then get pissed off and walk away for a while and have a beer, then drill a slightly larger hole...