On Tue, 15 Nov 2005 10:16:10 -0600, "Relz"
wrote:


"DE" wrote

Nothing easy about a E Zout IME. Try welding a washer
to the stub then a nut on the washer. Someone else
might have a better strategy. Oh yea toss whats left
of the EZouts, DE

I was surprised at how easy it was to break the EZout. I've heard the
straight, tapered style are better.
Does anyone have any experience with this style?

IMO ez outs should require a license to own. Yes the square tapered
are much better than the spiral version. However you still have to
know how to use them and it's not as ez as people think.

First off with the aluminum job you're in a bad shape. It's probably
possible to get it out but it will not be a easy job. I've had people
bring me these in after spending two days drilling on them making the
biggest mess you've ever seen. I pulled at least 5 pieces of broken
drill bit points out of one these (many of them going off at every
angle imaginable into the aluminum). Took me 1 1/2 hours to do what
should of been a 15 minute job just because they tried to do it
themselves.

Since you've got the easy out stuck in there you're limited on what
you can do. The best method would be EDM but it can be hard to get the
piece off and find a place who will do it. The carbide drill suggested
by another poster is another possibility. However the likely hood of
being able to do it with a hand drill is low with it on the car and
not messing up the aluminum at the same time. It will probably take a
good many of the carbide bits to get it done as well.

A carbide burr in a dremel at low speed is actually one of the
better ways to go if you don't have the skill to weld to the easy out
and get it out of the bolt. BTW you really need to use stainless to
weld to the easy out. Mild steel rod has a low chance of ever getting
a good hold on the high carbon steel in the easy out.

As for the bolt in the aluminum remember two things. Heat is you
friend in a case like this and patients is a virtue on a job like
this.

Don't get in a hurry.

Don't put to much force on a easy out. If the bolt didn't come out
with the full size of the bolt turning it then the small size of the
easy out isn't likely to do it either. Easy outs are for bolts that
broke when tightening or broke because of to much force was put on
them. Not for bolts that broke because they wouldn't turn when trying
to remove them. For those kinds of bolts then something has to change
before the easy out has a chance to work. Either the piece is heated
to red heat (not possible on aluminum) and allowed to cool or some
other thing has happened to loosen the stuck threads.

The way I would of gone about trying to remove this bolt is that I
would of first welded a washer on it (preferably with stainless rod).
Then I would of welded a nut on the washer. Then I would of heated
everything as much as I could without melting the aluminum and allow
to cool. Then I would of tapped on the bolt/nut combination to try and
get things broken up a little (note tap not hit, small hammer light
blows). Spraying with a good penetrating oil may or may not help but
it rarely hurts. Carefully try to work the bolt back and forth. Just
trying to unscrew it rarely works. You need to try and break up the
corrosion in the threads. Wiggling a slightly loose crescent wrench
back and forth on the nut is a good way to get the light blows needed
to work it loose. If you can ever get it to move slightly back and
forth then the odds of you getting it out are pretty good. Just keep
working it till it moves more and more. Once it starts moving keep
blasting it with penetrating oil to try and work some into the
threads. It will most likely come out if you keep this up and don't
get in a hurry.

If the bolt never does move after a good bit of careful working back
and forth then you can try with a little more force. Slowly working it
back and forth with more force till it either moves or the nut breaks
off the bolt. In which case you've got two choices. Welding another
nut on the bolt (in some cases it may take a dozen tries before the
heat of welding and the working causes the bolt to finally come free)
or you can drill it out. This is hard to do for many since it's really
hard to get in the center of the bolt when drilling. Start small and
work your way up through the drill index till you just start to see
threads on one side of the hole then stop. At this point depending on
how accurate you drilled the hole you can start working on picking the
threads out or you can start working on getting the rest of the bolt
out to the threads with a carbide burr in a dremel (the last is the
most likely scenario). For the most part I don't recommend using a tap
to get the remaining threads out. There's to much chance of the tap
getting bound in the hole and breaking. With care it can work but even
with care they will sometimes get bound up.


Wow that's rather long and rambling. Hopefully somebody will get
some good out part of it. This a subject that hits close to home since
I'm usually the one everybody brings these things to after they've
already made a mess of it. It's much easier for me if they just bring
it to me in the first place.



Wayne Cook
Shamrock, TX
http://members.dslextreme.com/users/waynecook/index.htm