Please read http://www.brickboard.com/RWD/index.htm?id=774219 for what happened to me brick.

To summarize: one of the protruding bolts holding the thermostat housing on my '89 740 Turbo (B230FT) broke off at the end as I was tightening one of the nuts. It is now flush level with the housing, with no thread to screw a nut onto it. The same thing happened with one of the two protruding bolts that hold the water pump in place.

I had the car towed to my mechanic who looked at the mess I made. He wouldn't even take the job. He said that even a machine shop may damage the cylinder head/block while extracting the bolts. He recommended I take a tax write-off and get rid of the car.

What do you guys think? I love this car, have invested hours and hours of work and hundreds of dollars worth of parts into it to make it run so well. And now, this!? Besides wanting to ripp my own head off, I really need some solid, good advice. Please, if you've read my previous post, what do you think I should do? Should I bring the car to a machine shop to extract the bolts and insert new ones (is this even possible? How can you insert new protruding bolts without going into the engine??), or should I just get rid of it and call it a loss?

HELP!?

another version on whats already been suggested...remove t-stat cover, weld cross bar onto stud use LOTS of rust eater (PB blaster, plus gas or other of your choice for a few days)...turn the sucker out...CAREFULLY

also BUY A (*&*(£&*(& torque wrench...they dont always save you.but they sure can help! (didnt save me on first stage torquing on the engine bolts on a honda motorbike when the bolt snapped (note first stage torqueing only!) inside the blind hole in the crank housing...) but i got it out being carefull - having first disasembled the entire cylinder block AGAIN....see yours is easy at least you can see the damn thing...

and that mechanic...well nuff said go find another he's at best lazy and at worst incompetant...having said that you screwed it up so I would expect him to be competant...but expensive!

I had the same problem on my old toyota celica when it was 17 yrs old.
I was able to remove the stub by drilling out the bolt starting with a
1/8 bit and moving up larger and larger until I approached the bolt walls.
I was then able to gradulally pry the rest out. I retapped the hole to the next size up ona dropped a bolt in and it held just fine! Use lots of
lubricant and go slow...
Dans

People are giving good advice. The car is not ready to be cast off! Give these suggestions a try. I also found the water pump surprisingly difficult to install (considering the all-around simplicity of the B230) - especially for one person. While I eventually levered that thing on, I too dropped some hardware into the timing belt cover! So don't feel so bad about it. Take care of your car and use it as a lesson for the next time you are working on it.

Good luck.
-pu
--
((1993 245 Classic, 93K)) ((1992 244, 105K)) ((1987 245, 271K - RIP)) San Diego

I guess I've never had the problem of dropping hardware into the timing belt cover, because my previous Volvos have been 240 Turbos... and the B230s I've done water pumps on have had the covers off.

But yeah.. that red block water pump is a pain sometimes. In an otherwise strangely designed car (nahh... actually I think it's a neat car) the water pump on a Peugeot 505 turbo diesel is a snap. Of course for the amount of money it costs (2-3x what a red block pump would cost) it sure better be easy :-D

--
alex

'89 765T, 170k miles

I agree that this is a salvageable situation, and that first mechanic should be cast into the mechanic's outer darkness(working on Chryslers? I don't know.)
I had the same type of thing happen to me on an exhast manifold bolt on my '81 Audi 5000.Of course, it was the bottom stud ay the rear of the manifold-AAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!Nightmarish, but necessary for the BEST snow car I ever drove. I got replacement studs from the dealer, and the process was an in-the-dark and crowded version of what's been described here. DO NOT HURRY! May the force be with you.

The previous responses are right, and if your mechanic would not take that
job, I would shun him.
As you drill the bolt out, you will come to a place where the drill breaks
through into the thread root. Especially in the case of aluminum, you
don't want to try to retap it with steel in the hole, BUT at this point the
wall thickness of the threaded tube you have formed is pretty thin. With
a prick punch or a cut-off ice pick, you can probably crush it from the
outside and then unscrew it fairly easily. A little damage to the threads
is better than a totally useless hole. If the threads are severely damaged
you can put a HeliCoil insert in there which will be stronger and less likely
to seize than the original threads, or you can tap to a bigger size. However,
threads can be beaten up pretty bad before a great deal of strength is lost.

Above all, keep your head! Don't Panic!! All is NOT lost!!
--
George Downs, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Central US

Read my post to your other message.

If the stud is broken off flush with the t-stat housing surface, take the housing off and there should be enough stud left to grab it with a pair of vice grips so you can unscrew it. HOWEVER, spend a day or two soaking the stud threads with liquid wrench, PB blaster, etc. and be careful not to break the stud off. It is also possible to heat the stud with a heat gun to help release it. It the stud breaks off, you can drill it out and retap the hole. Procedure for drilling a stud out is as follows:
1. Make sure top of stud is flat or nearly so. If necessary, grind/file the top of the stud flat.
2. With a SHARP centerpunch, carefully punch the stud in the EXACT center.
3. Using a NEW 3/32 or 1/8 bit, carefully drill down through the center of the stud, checking carefully as you go to keep the bit centered. Pull the bit out every so often and cool it in oil as you go. Replace the bit with a new one as it dulls.
4. Once you are all the way through, enlarge the hole with the next larger sized bit, increasing by no more than 1/32 or 1/16th inch. Eventually you will have drilled out to the root of the threads.
5. Retap the hole, and install a new stud or use a cap screw (bolt) instead. 6. You may have to drill and tap for the next larger size stud.
7. It is difficult to drill precisely in the center of a small stud. The secret is to go slow, check often, and use SHARP bits. Also using a variable speed drill helps.
8. It's not really a difficult process - just tedious.

Call around to another mechanic, one willing to use some common sense and drill out the broken stud. You'll pay by the hour and he will not guarantee his work given the potential for damage, but you'll get it done. Or take it to a high school auto shop and ask the shop teacher to use it as an example of how to extract a broken stud. Or call a machine shop and see what they will to.