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While taking off the upper door hinge on the drivers side I managed to break off all three bolts in the hinge plate...crap. So I tried welding nuts to the stubs and they broke too, so I'm wondering now where I should cut to access the hinge plate so I can remove it entirely to work on. Thanks for any imput.
Yea thats a pita , I might try and weld nuts on again and then heat threads with a torch and try to remove, if not you can drill an re tap which isn't that hard if you can get close to center as possible to drill out , sometimes they break loose drilling an spin out but not often,,if you really want to cut out I would remove dash and cut inside layer were it would be hidden , other than that if you try from the outer side you may risk cutting into a support possible that holds the threaded plate in place because you cannot see whats there,,but if you do I see some pin holes so I would cut high at that ridge top an bottom and out on sides as far as needed,,or I suppose you could cut a slot out at side edge were door closes and take a look to see about removing plate
I think I'd try soaking it down with PB Blaster for a couple days and also heat them up with a torch. I wouldn't shock cool them, cuz that might make the bolts even more brittle. After a couple days, try some vise grips or channelocks or anything else you can get a bite on them with.
You can drill through the two lower bolts if you have long drill bits, otherwise the drill-motor hits the cowl where it curls down. Or you can drill at a slight angle and stop on a smaller bit and re-tap the threads.
That upper bolt is completely covered by the cowl. If I had a welder, I'd just drill through the cowl, attack the broken bolt with long drill bits, and then patch the cowl.
