Water divider stud bolt removal

[pmg]

Dumb question, but how do you escalate when trying to remove a difficult engine stud and double nutting fails?

 

Backstory:

My water divider has a small leak where it joins the top of the engine block. The nut that tightens down on stud 15 (pictured below) stripped the upper portion of the stud. I removed the divider, ordered the replacement part (07129908160). Problem is I can't get the old stud out. 

 

The top 1/4 of the stud was stripped. I took an angle grinder and removed the top portion. I connected two nuts to 'double-nut' the stud off. This stripped the stud again!  I've still got about 1/4 of the stud with good threading still on. Not wanting to strip this. I grinded two smallflats on the smooth part, applied butane torch heat, pb blaster, and attempted to wrench this off using a number 7. No luck.

 

Failing this, what is the accepted next step? Weld a nut to the stud and then wrench it off? Try the flat trick again but with less suck? Apply wax + map gas torch to the stud?

[TobyB]

Vice grips.  Big ones.  Squeeze hard. Heat the stud, cool, heat, cool, repeat- tap with hammer- repeat.   Wiggle with vice grips.  Repeat as needed.

 

No escalator required.

 

t

Edited March 13, 2017 by TobyB

[rmoore007ri]

At this point I would suggest this:  Buy an extractor kit. You are going to drill a hole in the stud using a left hand drill bit.  Tap the tapered square extractor into that hole.  There is a fine line in selecting the size of hole to drill . . .
See http://www.wikihow.com/Remove-a-Broken-Bolt

 

Edited March 13, 2017 by rmoore007ri
remove something that has already been tried

[xferboy]

If there is still stud sticking out, I believe the following is the correct tool.

 

http://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS-Performance-Products/555/80510/10002/-1

 

need lots of room to work, but...

[tahoedon]

Agree with everything that Toby says and this is what I did about a year ago for that same stud.  But, it still broke off at the surface.  If this happens to you I would not try drilling and using an ez out because you will probably break the ez out in the hole, then you really have problems since it is hardened steel.  What I did was to make a drilling template out of 5/8 steel bar with 3 holes drilled into it,  2 holes bolted to the 2 manifold studs and the 3rd was positioned  over the broken stud.  This way the drill bit wouldn't walk off center.  I then drilled out the broken stud and installed a helicoil.  

[TobyB]

Yeah, Don, agreed-

if the damned thing's rusted in so tight it shears at the surface, a hardened e-z-out is a fiasco.  Left handed drill is good for good luck, and there's nothing wrong with trying to drill

just inside the threads- but a helicoil or timesert becomes inevitable at some point.  Aluminum oxide and ferric oxide are a very, very tough bond to break. 

And it's tough to use heat- the hotter the better, but if it goes above 800f or so, then the stud starts to lose strength, and you lose there, too.  Yet the heating and cooling expansion

of the stud can work wonders at breaking the threads loose.  Sometimes.  And hitting the end reasonably hard with a pretty big hammer does help, too.

 

t

['76mintgrün'02]

For a blast of cold, you can use a can of compressed air turned upside down.

Frosty sub-zero coldness will come out of that can.

 

It might sound silly, but try working it in both directions; not just out.

 

EDIT:

I woke up thinking about this/my advice.  The cold I am suggesting is for the heat cycling that Toby mentions.

As I understand it, the resulting expansion/contraction can crack the bond, which can let oil in and help it come out.

 

When things are colder, they become more brittle, so don't force it while it is frosty.

 

One advantage to welding a nut onto the shaft is that you can use an impact driver on it.

The little battery powered style is what I would try; in forward/reverse/forward/reverse.

 

You could try gripping the stud with two pair of vise grips, to create a 'T-handle'.

Turning it with both might help reduce the tendency to bend it while twisting.

Edited March 13, 2017 by '76Mintgrun'02

[D.martijn]

I just recently removed this every stud from my cylinder block.

 

When I tried the double nut trick, the stud just sheared off in half. I then welded a nut on the part that was sticking out, thinking if it would still shear of, I could weld another nut on it again.

 

Even welding a nut on the stud wasn't enough, I had to heat up the aluminium around it. With my brother heating the block, my dad holding the cylinder block down, I was able to slowly turn the stud out.

[ray_]

14 hours ago, TobyB said:

Vice grips.  Big ones.  Squeeze hard. Heat the stud, cool, heat, cool, repeat- tap with hammer- repeat.   Wiggle with vice grips.  Repeat as needed.

 

No escalator required.

 

t

 

Vise. Vise.

[zinz]

hahahaha.... vice, vise...tomato, tomato

 

 

Ed

[TobyB]

You don't need to bring out President Grips for something that small, Ray...

 

hee.

 

t

 

[Son of Marty]

A small pipe wrench beats vise grips for this job the jaws a parallel and they grip tighter the harder you pull on them. 

[Mike Self]

3 hours ago, ray_ said:

 

Vise. Vise.

Perhaps Toby may have been referring to the tools that interrogators use to get confessions from drug dealers and other vice lords...when applied properly to the right place(s) vice grips can be surprisingly effective!

 

mike

[xferboy]

sometimes tapping/hitting (not smacking) the vice grips with a small hammer works too.

 

It doesn't provide the big torque that pulling on it does, but there is some impact action (small spikes in torque) that can loosen with out breaking the stud...

[pmg]

Thanks guys. Got this out and swapped.

 

Ended up using this tool for $15 on Amazon, same day delivery. The length of the stud, combined with me foolishly already grinding it had me worried about sheering it if using a monkey wrench, miami vice grips (heh), or a pipe wrench pliers. I particularly liked that tool as it was cheaper than the Jegs stud removal tool and seems to follow the same idea used by the stud pullers of our roughneck forebears (skip to 2:45 for 80,000 ft/lb explanatory action):

 

 

(My favorite moment is at 45 seconds. Roughneck gonna' roughneck)