Well guys/gals I have a Non ford question for ya .. My friend and I (Ford_SIX) have a 1988 subaru engine (1.8 H 4) which we have torn down to replace the head gaskets and other leaking items.
The problem is one of the intake bolts broke off in the head (wonderful intake/water passage). We have tred wrenching on it with a a set of vice grips ..no go ..I thought we decided that we would let the machine shop remove it as both of the head's are going to the shop to be pressure tested and cleaned up (got a cheep deal ) Well my friend decided to try an easy out on it , and broke the easy out in the same broken bolt !
I was wondering if you guys/gals may have any tricks ( for next time) as I have decied not to mess with it and hopfully the shop wont charge an arm and a leg to get it out . Thanks
Jon

 

If it isn't broke off flush you can weld a nut to it.

 

We thought about that but decided not to and ( so I thought) leave it alone ...now its pretty mangled and the addition of the broken easy out makes it alot worse ( hopfully they dont want alot to remove it !!)

 

If you have the equipment, a Bridgeport mill would be the answer. You bore the works out, using an end mill like a drill, and then try to pick out the remains of the threads in order to try to save the original hole ( if not then it's heli-coil time ). The broken easy-out might be a problem because of the hardness of it. Steel bolts tend to sieze in aluminum and sometimes no amount of twisting will break it free.

 

Thanks for the good news LOL ! I am gonna call the machine shop and get a price along with the pressure test and the clean up ...if it isnt too high I 'll have them do it , if it is I may be able to use the bridgeport at my old high school . Anything we can put the "new" intake bolts so that this doesnt happen again I was thinging anti seize or somthing like that ,but I am worred about it "gushing out" and messing up the intake gasket causing more problems . The strange thing I might add is the there are 3 bolts that hold the intake down . There are 2 long bolts and 1 shorter bolt .. The two .long bolts were rusted badly while the shorter one was'nt ..Oh the joys of working on cars

 

I broke some exhaust studs in a motorcycle head took them to a friends shop, he said $40.00 per stud. He used some machine that impacts the stud while hitting it with high current. It pretty much desintegrated the old stud and broken easy out. He ended up doing the work for free because he is a friend of the family. Unfortunatly i drilled into the side of the thread trying to fix it myself, he had to use helicoils.

I have never had much luck with extractors unless you use a lot of heat along with it.

Donovan
Rochester NY

 

I broke a tap off in a head once. I took it to a machine shop that does "EDM". It is a process that electrically "drills" through hard metals. They only charged $35. I dont know how popular this is, but look around.

 

Well, that car is all done. The heads were cracked beyond repair, starting between the valves and going into the bowl area. There was also massive casting porosity in the exhaust passage, causeing a leak there. Reman heads are $200 each, so it's see ya to the Subee.

 

What Jared said LOL
Jon

 

I broke an easy out in a flathead Harley headbolt once. Used a diamond plated cylinder shaped tool from a Foredom kit to grind out the easyout then drilled a larger hole for a bigger easyout. Diamond tools make things easy like air tools!