The front bolt that holds the caliper to the trailing arm has rounded off. The trailing arm is still on the car, I really don't want to remove it and the brake line is still hook up to the caliper.
I have been soaking it in PB Blaster and Liquid Wrench since yesterday at about this time of the day. I tried using an Impact driver, the thing you hit with a hammer. There's not enough room to swing the hammer and get a good hit to turn the driver and turn the socket. I've tried the open end of the wrench, the closed end, those extreme grip wrenches that Sears sales (that made it worse! I'm getting my money back on those things). I tried to drill a pilot hole to get an eze out in there, I made a dent and that was it. I can round the head, but I can't drill it out.

I don't have access to a torch at the moment. I won't be able to have access to a welder until Tuesday, but when I do, I will have a welder, torch, and a plasma cutter.

I am currently trying to put a 13mm socket on it. The bolt is a 5/8's, it's slow work, but it's going on. But I don't know if it will help or make it worse.

What else can I try?

I know I won't be able to reuse the bolt, but I'd rather not damage a caliper that is only a year old by hacking the bolt head off.

 

http://www.irwin.com/irwin/consumer/...IrwinCat100511

These are called bolt extracters. I work for Lenox and Irwin is a division of ours. I have these as some demo tools and have used them on some heavily stripped bolt heads. They grip the head of the bolt and turn it out. If the bolt is seized itwill be a probelm but these work quite well in gripping a rounded bolt head.

 

Try applying heat with MAP Gas. Dont really need to get extreme with a full blown torch yet. When drilling the head if it comes to that DO NOT turn the drill too fast. Apply lots of pressure. If you turn the bit too fast without enough pressure you can harden the area you're trying to drill.
Blueing and smoke are not things youwant to see while drilling

 

Back to the store...again.

Thanks, I'll give that a shot. It was a 15mm socket not a 13... I couldn't get it on either way.

The other bolts came off fine, but did require a lot of force, will that be a problem using the bolt extractor? I talked to the head mechanic at Pepboys and said his mechanics rarely followed torque specs, so the caliper bolt is more than likely on too tight.

 

No problem with the extracter. If it is the correct size the extracter should be as strong as the bolt. Try to keep everything straight when putting torque to it. Heat will help also as mentioned above.

 

What is MAP Gas, I know a bit about metal work and such and have never heard of it?

Saw smoke twice, so I probably did harden the area. I can't apply a lot of pressure and low speeds. The variable speed drill is cordless, so it'll just stop if I apply a lot of pressure, same with the 2 speed dremel. The regular drill has one speed and two directions and has seen better days. So drilling is probably out, but if I try that again, I'll keep it in mind.

A crazy thought entered my mind, that I could just pull the front half of the caliper off, but I really don't want to rebuild the caliper, while the other half of it is attached to the car.

 

Sears sells an extracor kit that is similar to the Irwin if you can't find the Irwin kit. Keep spraying the PB. It may take several days but if the bolt is being held in by corrosion the PB will dissolve it eventually. i had a frozen bolt on the overflow tank bracket of the 72 that couldn't be drilled out and i didn't want to replace the whole mount. I sprayed the bolt 1-2 times a week with PB and kept trying to turn it. After ~1 month the bolt freed up. If you heat the bolt a bit and then spray PB it will penetrate even faster.



Rick B.

 

Mapp gas is a plumbers friend. It is used the same as propane but it burns hotter than propane. It is a little more expensive than propane but you will use less gas to heat to the same temp and it will heat up faster. Plumbers like it because it saves time sweating copper joints. Available at most big boxes that sell hand held torches.

We sell (Lenox) torches also. Here is one of the kits that includes Mapp gas.
http://www.lenoxtools.com/enUS/Produ...T___GASES.html

 

It's probably a grade 8 bolt, so it would be a bitch to drill out. If you do get a hole, I doubt that a ez out would be strong enough to turn the bolt out anyway. They usually snap off for me when things are that tight.
I would be very careful when applying heat as you noted.
Those socket bolt extractors do work if you have enough head left for them to dig into.
There is a newer spray tool that will freeze the bolt also. Maybe alternate between hot and cold. I think it's made by CRC. Should be able to get it at AZ or Kragen, etc.
Your welder may end up being your best choice.

 

I found the Irwin kit at o'reillys, met a local vette guy at Lowes. (makes 3 of us in the whole town) Purchased another set of drill bits and a strange looking wrench/thing. I'll post a picture of it later. I think I saw some of that Mapp gas stuff at Lowes, didn't stop to inspect what kind it was, but saw the torches. I'll find out in a minute how it goes. Thanks for the help so far. Hopefully it won't take me more than four days to repair my parking brake. When the shop manual said it was the most difficult repair to do on a corvette, I think they weren't being completely honest.

Edit: The socket will bite into the bolt, but I need a third hand/arm to push down and keep the rachet and short extension from pushing up. The hunt for help at 10 at night begins.

 

 

YOur gonna have to use pb and heat to get that out.I would not even think about an ez out,it'll never happen.Spray -heat ,spray heat.you said the 15 mm would not fit on their pound it on with a hammer and heat the bolt it will come out.Smack the bolt with a hammer a couple of times to flatten it before you pound on the socket-then heat.

 

Come on now, Earl! Least you can do is offer some words of encouragement. (joking) No luck on getting help right now. I did get the other half of the old rear cable out of the way and the new cable clipped into place, except for below the caliper. Going to see if I can free up that lever and then see if my passenger side (the side I have been working on) parking brake internal parts are still good. If they are, then the caliper is staying on the car. I should have tried this yesterday when I rounded the head.

Edit: If nothing else, I now know that something is wrong with my passenger side parking brake. The lever that the cable hooks on moves to far forward to have the shoes in the proper place. Least I know it needs fixing now... up until now I wasn't 100% sure.

Thanks for all the help.

If anyone has anymore ideas, please let me know.

 

I've done this by filing some flats on the bolt head with a basterd file...then using a socket...

 

I may have to file it down now, I attached the regular drill to the Irwin socket and well ... two seconds, a puff of smoke, and three smashed fingers later, the bolt head has a nice slope on the edge, now. So not only is it rounded, it's sloped. The Irwin socket fits down deeper now though... so I don't know if it was a major set back or not. I've got a dremel and a few metal cutting blades, if it comes to it, I can reshape the head of the bolt or cut the head off. Then drill out the bolt from the caliper.

 

I would have taken the dremel and some cutoff blades and a chisel to it a long time ago. I think you would have saved time by now and the bolt is ruined either way.

 

Do you have a dremel? If not, nows the time to buy one, you'll use it a lot on the vette - trust me. But the flex shaft for it as well. Buy some reinforced cutting disc wheels (the good ones, not the ones that turn to dust when they touch metal). Slowly cut the head off of the bolt using the cutting wheels. This will take time and patience, so don't rush it; the last thing you want to do is dig into the brake caliper ear because of carelessness. Once you cut the head off the bolt, you'll be able to remove the caliper. Heat up around the bolt on the brake caliper bracket. Immediately after heating, spray some PB blaster on the area. The penetrating oil will wick right into the threads, because the outside metal has expanded around the bolt. I used this propane torch and PB blaster method on my u-joint caps, and it works great. Use a pair of vise grips on the bolt's shank to turn it out.

 

If the extractors didn't work then you are just spinning your wheels and you could cause more damage if you are not skilled in some of the other tricks.

I have used all of the above mentioned ideas and all of them have worked one time or another. However if you are not skilled to perform them then they can become an added problem.


Keep soaking it with PB or any form of penetrate and when you get the welder to your house weld a nut to the bolt head.

You can weld the nut through the hole to the bolt head and then you can apply a scoket and bar on it.

The nut can also be larger than the bolt head if you have room and that will provide more weld area in the hole.

 

The bolt came loose this morning with a loud ting sound, by using the PB Blaster, an Irwin socket (hammmered the socket further on to the bolt to get a good bite) and a breaker over bar, sorta like a ratchet, except it doesn't ratchet. Now I can tear into the parking brake parts again ...

Had to use the PB Blaster to get a socket off the breaker bar...

These thing are worth their weight in gold, times ten!

I'm saving the frame off for another day.

I already have a dremel, I was very tempted to hack the head off, but I really didn't want to mess with the rest of the bolt after I did that.

I just want to say thank you again for all the help you have given me with this task.


Thanks for all the help and ideas guys. Back to work, for me.

 

Good to hear stories about how our tools are working. Always nice to hear of success.