Doki wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
I've got a couple of very small self tappers which have broken off flush
with a blind housing made of thin mild steel - car bodywork. Due to being
rusted in place. What's the best way to remove them with minimum
damage to
the bodywork?

I had a similar experience with the door handle screws on a Golf. In the
end there was a combination of plus gas, time, cutting slots with a
dremel and a drill. I think the slots and plus gas eventually did it. I
find using a torque limited cheap electric screwdriver useful for these
sorts of things - set them to a low torque setting and high speed and
you get a very light impact driver effect that tends to get things
moving. Drilling was something of a waste of time - the screw must have
been made of something tough as it blunted drills like crazy. The heat
may have helped a little though - couldn't use a blowtorch due to the
still attached plastic handle.

The problem of drilling something hard is down to the very tip of the
drill, the chisel point. If this is not hard enough to create a hole
then all effort is wasted. Once you get a hole in the metal, known as a
pilot hole, you might find that standard HSS drills will be OK to open
it up. Obviously the twist drill must be freshly sharpened and run at a
slow speed.

Dave