I went to change out the t-stat on an 89 22re truck I just bought. One of the housing bolts was held in with RTV-slightly stripped out
The other is my nightmare. The bolt broke with little effort, it was not even tight really, and to be honest I think it was already stretched. So now I have a broken bolt. I should have stopped right there, gotten a mig welder, tacked a nut on and tried to extract the bolt that way.

Instead I cheaped out, drilled thru the stud, put an extractor in and promptly broke that off in the hole. Moral of that story: never, never believe the guy at the tool store saying that Smith and Wesson screw extractors work great. They make nice guns, but everything else with their name is crap.

No problem, now I get hold of a welder, tack a nut onto the protruding threads, sweet as can be, stick a socket on that and it snaps. so now I have an almost flush broken bolt in my intake manifold.

Does anyone have any ideas for me?

My only idea now is to get a titanium drill bit and try to drill out the stud completely, then put a helicoil in if I munch the threads, which the other side is munched anyway and I should fix that right.

The joy of used trucks.
The broken screw extractor is crap tool steel, very soft for that stuff, but still a little too hard for my cobalt bits.

Any ideas would be appreciated. I am too old for this crap and should have known better. guess you are never too old to learn again to listen to little voice.

 

don't feel too bad man, plenty of stuff like that has happened to me too. buying a used car is buying someone else's problems. I would check local junkyards as you might come across another lower manifold cheap. If not I would at least try to drill out that bolt; buy a decent extractor and give it a try one more time first though, and soak it with a bunch of penetrating oil before using the extractor.

 

definitely try the drill and helicoil. it's a lot cheaper than a manifold, but then again you can prolly get one cheap at a salvage yard.
and put anti-sieze compound on the threads of the new bolts so this don't happen again.

 

I would keep trying to weld a nut to it. Sometimes it takes me a few tries. It seems a stick welder sometimes works better than mig for that. If it is below grade aways, use a small piece of tube in the hole, run the rod down the tube, turn welder on, weld tube to shaft of bolt/easy out, turn tube. Good luck.

 

where you located? i got an extra manifold!

 

If I totally munch this job, I will be giving you a PM! Hopefully it wont come to that.

The only reason it broke the second time was because it was hollow from drilling it first. i am going to attempt to weld a bolt onto it but it is pretty much flush now so i dont know how that is gonna work out.

So how much you want for the manifold? :-)

I am in N. Idaho. what part of Oregon are you in?

 

i hope you get it fixed! im from the southcoast part of oregon. i have no clue how much they go for so....$25 you pay shipping?

 

Well I scored a intake manifold locally for 30 bucks so HOPEFULLY i wont need to take you up on your offer, but I really appreciate it.

I got it torn down now, and am swapping out parts today, but have to wait until tuesday for all my gaskets to come in.

Now back to scraping gaskets!