I was trying to remove my water pump today and one of the bolts fastening the pump to the engine broke off. This is the little 8 mm bolt to the right of the 10 mm bolt, right on top of the water pump as you face it, at about 1 o'clock from dead center. I worked all afternoon getting to the thing. I was two bolts away from glory and the damn thing broke off. About a half inch of the bolt came out. I was standing there holding Tiny Tim's you know what! Now what what do I do? The rest of that bolt is in there, snug as a bug. What a way to go!

Any ideas you have would be welcome.




Deeply appreciated,
cuddy

Been there. It sucks.

What I found to work was to drill a small hole IN EXACTLY DEAD CENTER of the remaining bolt, and then incrementally increase the drill size until you have reached the minor diameter of the thread cut. Then chase the remaining bolt thread out of the hole with a tap of proper size and thread pitch. (6mm x 1.25 pitch???)

If the bolt is broken off above the surface, you may find it easier to center the drill if you file a flat spot on the top of the bolt first. If the bolt is broken off below the surface, you can sometimes use a short piece of steel tubing with an O.D. the same size as the bolt hole and a drill diameter equal to the tube's I.D. Shove the tube in the hole and then drill down through the center of it. Then remove the tube and increase the drill size as needed.

BlueGoose offers good advice. None of this is fun (well, maybe for SOME people), but it is all do-able.

I laughed, at the boat shop, when someone was making a run to the hardware store, and was asked to get left-handed drill bits. Thought they were joking. Nope!

Now I wouldn't be without them, even at $4 each. Tip: Buy a small assortment, and immediately spray paint them yellow or white -- something to set them apart. (The paint will remain in the flutes, even after use.) You'll reach for them more often than you think.

Shoot the threads with PBlaster, let it set for a couple hours, grab the stud with vise grips and work it back and forth. More PBlaster. It should come out.
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1986 Volvo 245

Sorry, that's PB Blaster. Available at some AutoZones, Ace, Home Depot.
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1986 Volvo 245

Thanks for responding, but there's nothing to grab. The bolt broke off inside the body of the pump. I hit it with PB blaster going in. It sheared clean off after a couple of turns. Anything else come to mind?

Thanks
Cuddy

Cuddy,

Your last response is a bit confusing, please clarify. Is the pump still on the engine or is the bolt broken off flush with the block? If the pump is still on the engine, remove the other bolt holding it in place and see if there is enough of the broken off bolt sticking out of the block to grab ahold of.

jorrell
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92 245 250K miles, IPD'd to the hilt, 06 XC70, 00 Eclipse custom Turbo setup...currently taking names and kicking reputations!

Jorrell,

To clarify: There are three 8 mm hex head screws and two 10 mm bolts that fasten the water pump to the block. What I did was break off a hex head screw. After reading your post, I went out to the brick, unbolted the other two hex head 8mm screws and the pump came off. Thank you. But I still have a problem. The screw I broke off left about an inch's worth of metal in the block, and it's hard to get to. The other two screws are about 1 3/4 in length. I broke off about 3/4 of a inch, leaving another 3/4 of an inch inside. Any suggestions?

Thanks again.
Cuddy

Cuddy,

If there is 3/4" protruding from the block, you have something to work with. Just exercise some care and don't be in a rush.

I would heed BlueGoose's advice about using the PB Blaster to hopefully loosen things up and ultimately after say a day's squirting at the threads of the broken stud, clamp a set of good vise grips on the 3/4" section of stud that is available. You may want to gingerly try to see if it will move by careful, but not excessive force on the vice grips because you don't want to break off the remaining section. In addition, you may want to try to move the stud clockwise a trifle (in) to get things started and maybe rock it back and forth between tightening and loosening.

With 3/4" protruding, you may also be able to use two nuts locking one against the other to provide a means to simply turn the inward nut to crank that broken stud right out.

Lastly, as another poster suggested, you can weld a nut or bar stock to the broken stud and turn it out that way.

I wish you the best of luck.

Marty Wolfson

If there's nothing to grab onto the next step is to use an Easy-Out. Left hand drill that bites into the bolt shaft and turns it out.
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1986 Volvo 245

A misnomer if ever there was one. Or perhaps they were intending to be ironic...

And when that fails drill out the whole remaining stud and retap the thread, possibly one size bigger.

Hi. On my 54 Chev. 1/2 ton I had a flush sheared bolt in my exhaust manifold (generator mount) I placed a slightly smaller nut over the bolt hole and carefully welded the nut to the end of the broken bolt. This heated the stud enough to loosen it from the casting and the nut gave means to extract broken stud. I used gass welding to cherry hot the broken bolt. Good luck... Paul