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Re: Screw extractor

To: phile@stpaul.gov (Philip J Ethier)
Subject: Re: Screw extractor
From: Paul Amaranth <amaranth@vela.acs.oakland.edu>
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 1994 11:59:20 -0400 (EDT)
I have
> found that in almost every case, if the drill does not remove the bolt,
> then the EZout won't do the job anyway!  
I can believe that.

> The bottom line is, if you have a bolt broken off in a blind hole, there
> is no disadvantage to using left-hand twist drills instead of regular ones.
> And you may get lucky and pop the sucker right out.
Actually, I agree.  I think the left handed bit is a good idea.  BUT, I 
have never had that work for me.  AND I have never had an ez out work
either.  I mean, if the thing is corroded in there enough that you end
up breaking the bolt off, I can't see how the heat involved in drilling
is going to make that much difference (I try using a propane or
acetylene torch when possible - never seems to make a lot of difference
unless you get the stuff red hot, which isn't too useful on things like
cylinder heads and engine blocks :-).  

Anyway, maybe you're just luckier than me :-)  I try all these things
and end up drilling them out anyway.  I keep hoping for a magic bullet
to ease the trauma though.

The last time I broke off a bolt, I had to remove the intake manifold
from my '8 and drill it out (with left hand bits).  Then I had to use
a teeny grinding wheel to get the rest of it off without screwing up
the theads.  Locktite makes a useful thread restoring compound for
cases like that.

The time before that involved removing the seats on the '8.  The seat
mounting bolts snapped off.  In that case, I had to end up punching out
the nuts that had been spot welded to the floor and welding in some new
ones.  I broke a 3/8 EZ out on one of those.


-- 
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