Awesome !!!!! Glad you got it out.......lesson learned (for all of us)......were you able to clean up any debris like Rich mentioned? That is good advice right there, easy to overlook.


No thankfully, it broke off just above the bolt part, so the bad news was the magnet part of the plug socket was useless, the good news was it was unscrewed, just stuck down the friggn 9" tube to the cylinder head. Almost got with my fly fishing forceps but eventually it was just some delicate work with the socket and extension.....think the old game "Operation" when you were a kid.....

 

CDI torque wrenches are very good. We use them in the military and here at Lockheed Martin. You should never use the low 10% or high 10% of a TW. Once when done using it always return it to the lowest setting. If you ever drop a TW your not suppose to use it and send it in to have it recalibrated. Also CDI makes a lot of TW that have an arrow on it showing which way to torque. Snap On sells that torques both ways. Either way good luck on getting that bolt out.

 

OK guys, so here's the skinny.

TLDR: Got bolt out, just got lucky.




I first semi-centered a punch on the bolt piece. It was sheared off in a way that left one side a little higher than the other side and that kept my punch from being dead center. It was off to the right just a shade.














Then I stuck that titanium bit on it and some 'erl for lube. Then I just drilled on that dog for 15 minutes. I timed it. My arms were sore, my hands were numb, and I had made a dent in the bolt that looked like a butt dimple on a fat girl. Very disappointed.
















I grumbled and came back inside. Ran a search on "best drill for hardened steel" and came up with this thread on Garage Journal where they talk about carbide bits. Hmm, I thought. I should just get one of those if they're so awesome it's like drilling through buttah!







I walked out into my garage to get The Boy to ride with me (7 yrs old) and as I'm gathering up my keys I look up and see a brand new carbide tip masonry bit that I bought for installing some bathroom stuff for The Blonde (wife). Holy good luck batman!








Instead of having a regular drill head it has a spade kinda head













Well I slapped that puppy in my butt dimple of a bolt guide and went to drilling. It spun around about four times then got stuck. I pulled on it but it wouldn't budge. So I flipped the drill to reverse and GUESS WHAT HAPPENED!?!??!


Doodle doodle doodle doot!











Out she spun! Little bass turd!












Here's a pic of me holding it.











And here's one of me tossing it on the ground and stomping on it repeatedly to show my appreciation.












That probably cost me 10 years of life. I'm lucky I didn't have a heart attack but you know what? It turned out OK. I took a pencil magnet and rubbed it all along the inside of the threads to get the yuck. It came out oily and pokey. Wiped that memory on a rag and now I'm walking on cloud 9. SOO FREAKING RELIEVED!



Thanks to everyone on here that helped and offered solutions and sympathy. I was losing my freaking mind thinking I'd ruined a new-to-me truck. As you can tell, my experience level is pretty minimal. I know what a wrench is, and I can do some stuff, but an expert I am not. So thank you everyone. You made a horrible situation bearable and saw me through to success. THANK YOU!!!!

 

Dude! You are one more lucky son of a buttah'd biscuit eater.... CONGRATS

 

What about the other bolts you over torqued. Like my grandson says, What Happened. Just an old man putting my two cents.

 

Superduty karma! Well done!!

 

For future reference. Masonry bits are quite different than a carbide drill bit used on metal. A solid carbide bit in a hand drill is a disaster, waiting to happen, of a much bigger proportion than a broke bolt.

 

Thank you for that clarification!

 

I have this t-shirt. Broke it off at the hold down bolt. Luckily, I got mine out too. Never again will I ever put a foot pound torque wrench near my VC's. I'm nervous to use an inch pound wrench. Glad you got it out!!

 

So wait, you're saying using carbide bits on exhaust bolts and all like they're discussing is a bad idea? They said it's the best go-to option. I'm only asking because I don't know carbide from Telluride.



An update on the other bolts I already torqued. I haven't messed with them aside from zapping them with PB Blaster. I did get my new bolts ordered today. Guess I'll plan on replacing them every time I do glow plugs. From the other reports of them snapping off I'm assuming they fatigue at about that rate.

I got a killer deal on them too. Here's my receipt so you any of you guys that order them can get the same deal.

Most ford shops will price match I'm going to move back to my build thread now so I don't clog up the forum with my nonsense. Thanks again for all the help. I really lost it there for a while!

 

Congratulations! I know that feeling when you think you blew something expensive up, then the forum calms you with experienced advice to to pull back from the precipice of panic.

By the way, well written and documented.

 

LOLed so hard at the thought of this.

Good job getting that bolt out without getting a spring lodged in your head!

 

Dan,

Can you give a little insight to help us who are drill bit challenged?

 

Glowplugger, I'm very happy you were able to get the bolt out. I had a hard time reading your thread because it scares the crap out of me to have something like this happen.

We can all learn a lot from your experience! I'm now going to test all of my Torque Wrenches and replace what is either bad or can't be easily calibrated.

 

Sure, A masonry bit is a percussion tool, normally used in some sort of rotary hammer drill. The carbide is there for wear resistance not sharpness. That is why the tip is brazed to a much softer and forgiving blank (think bending or flexing.

A true solid carbide drill is: a) sharp, b) doesn't do well with impact (the sharp edge will chip) and c) does not respond well to flex or bending.

In my shop I don't even like to use a solid carbide drill in a Bridgeport as the feed control and lack of rigidity can cause problems such as edge chipping and breakage.

If you were to look at the hardness of various fasteners used in these trucks, a high quality High Speed Steel (HSS) is plenty enough tool to get the job done. Perhaps if you had a lot of holes to drill HSS with Cobalt would be a nice improvement.

So what makes carbide in a hand drill a no-no? Look, he's having trouble drilling a bolt out that is maybe 35 Rockwell hardness on the C scale. A heat treated HSS drill bit is on the order of 65 R/c...and carbide is on the order of 90 R/c. So the question becomes this...let's say you got the carbide drilled in to a bolt maybe 2x diameters deep....and them your feet slip on the oily floor and you snap the carbide off...in the bolt. Now what are you planning to use to get that out? A EDM machine that's what.

Most time the average homeowner, and even professional mechanics don't have the knowledge, the equipment or ability to properly sharpen a twist drill bit. Oh, you might get it sharp and drilling the correct sized hole in a piece of mild steel. But, how thick is the web? Oh, what's a web you ask. That's the intersection of the cutting edges. (the drill point) When you need to drill in a hardened piece you need to have a thin web. But what is the downside of a thick web? The thicker the web (drill point) the more force needs to be applied to move the drill in to the material....and that creates heat, and wears your arms out.

So, the best solution in this rocker arm bolt would have been. 1) Center punch a starting point, 2) Use a center drill to give a drill a decent chance. and the most important 3) A left-handed twist drill.

That rocker bolt wasn't seized in the head, it just needed some help to be spun out. The left handed drill would do that more than likely. And if it didn't, you'd still have a hole to use a screw extractor in.

Sorry to be so long!