I was taking my valve covers off and one of the bolt heads twisted right off. The bolt is now almost flush with the head. I used an "easy-out" drill bit to try and back it out, but the head of the bit snapped on the stater hold for the bit. Now I have a screw stuck in the head and a easyout bit stuck ing the screw.

AM I SCREWED OR WHAT?

Any suggestions on geeting this bolt out?

 

I would put the rest of the bolts back in, and make an appointment with a machinist. They won't charge much for a job like that. Good luck.

 

valve cover bolts shouldn't be in TOO tightly. Since you said the head snapped off ALMOST flush that indicated to me that there is still some of the shaft of the bolt above the level of the head - can you grab it with visegrips and turn it out?

 

No... I guess it is safe to say it is flush.

 

bright side of things..........i was taking off the exhaust manifolds one day and had one of the bolt that wouldn't budge...i get up on the motor and gave it a good torque and all of a sudden was incapacitated by the pain in my neck....it was a pinched nerve injury was down and out for three days....was the most pain i have ever been...once i recovered i put a pipe on the end of the wrench and landed up breaking off the bolt head too!!!

 

That's funny... but not really. ha-ha

 

The mechanic thing sounds good.. Although I hate to take my car to one.. My dad had a pully bolt snap off and left a fairly smooth top to it. Took it to the mechanic and took him about 20 minutes to get it out and replace it with a new bolt.

 

Be carefull with the Mechanic route, a slimy mechanic trick is to glue the head of the bolt in place so the next guy thinks he broke it. I caught this from a Dealer once, and no the managers face did not turn red.

 

Do not take it to a mechanic,, unless you know him and his work. The fastner removal professionals are Machinists. You are far from being screwed but do the machinist a big favor and do not attempt anything else, he has many options in removing it and if you damage it further it will only make his options dwindle away.
If you absolutly want to try something, use a sharp center punch and gently tap the easy out to try and disloge it or even break it apart,, being carefull not to jam it further by bending metal over it. The danger in your case is the size of stud,, small easyout, small drill, very very easy to break.
Again,, and no disrespect to good mechanics, seak a machinist.
Good luck

 

Sell the car

 

If you had a welder you can put a nut on top of broken stud and weld in the middle of nut,then you have a nut on it,but you need a welder.
or try a small pointy punch see if you can tap it loose.

 

sounds like time for a set of new aluminum heads.

Yes you are screwed. How much time or money do you want to sink into these iron smog heads.

 

Is any of the easy-out above the bolt, if so grab it with locking pliers and pull it out twisting it for removal of the easy-out not removal of the bolt. Then drill the bolt body out. At work we drill the bolt body out and then peel out the threads out of the hole with a pick.
Roger

 

Well I think I'm going to try a few suggestions... and if no luck I'll get a machinist.

 

get a small dremmel. cut a slot in the bolt no matter how far into the head it is. unscrew it with a screwdriver. clean up the threads with a tap and use new bolts.

 

Now this is a suggestion I was looking for...
BUT what is a small dremmel?

 

I had the same thing happen to me with a header bolt. I tried an easy out and snapped that to. I tried to center punch the easy out and that did not work. I messed around with it all day on a Saturday. I have a welder but I am not the best welder, called my father over to my house (one of the best welders I know) he welded a nut on the end of the snapped bolt and backed it out. I wasted an enitre day and he got it out in 10 minutes do youself a favor and find yourself a guy the is good welder if you are not one. I now people that took snapped bolts in heads to a local Napa store and only charged $15 to get snapped bolts out. Good Luck!

 

Been there and done that. You can drill into the center of the bolt and turn it out w/a tap. Use a good oil to help free it up. Put the oil on the bolt the day before to let it sink in. I used this stuff called liguid wrench but there are other oils made to free up rusted bolts. G/L

 

The slit with a Dremel Tool sounds good! Failing that, there are left hand twist drill bits available that will sometimes work- assuming you have a reversable drill as in cordless. Good luck!

 

Assumptions:
1) The valve cover screw is a 1/4-20
2) The head of the 1/4-20 screw snapped off indicating that the threaded part is stuck pretty hard in the head... enough to cause
the screw head to snap off... this is pretty well "stuck".
3) The screw snapped off flush or below the head surface
4) You drilled the stuck screw to allow an easy-out to be started
5) The brittle, extremely hard, easy-out snapped off flush with the head and is still stuck in the drilled starter hole.

Using a dremel (small rotary grinder/cutter) will require you to cut the head as well as the screw & easy out. In addition, this method may not work because the screw is stuck in the hole hard enough to snap off the screw head, which is probably too hard to allow unscrewing with a screw driver. It's worth a shot, but you will damage the head in the process.

Welding a nut on the end of a flush 1/4-20 screw is going to be a bit tricky.. but once you get it welded, you can work the nut/screw clockwise & counter-clockwise and it may loosen up and come out.

Add some heat with a torch and you may increase the odds in your favor.

DIY- Heat the head and the remaining screw etc with an Oxy-Acetylene torch, hit it with WD40 on the cool down cycle, repeat a dozen times, while still hot, use a small diameter drift punch (1/16 - 3/32) to tap at the circumference of whatever is left of the screw, first in one direction, then in the other... if you can get any kind of catch point on it at all. A few taps in each direction before re-heating. The heating /cooling is what helps the screw to separate from the head.
Light taps... hard taps will destroy any grip point that you might have for the drift punch. Patience is the key.

If there is no point of contact for the drift punch, then remove the head & take it to a machine shop.

If the torch can't be used because of the screw location, then this method will probably not work with the head on the engine... you'll have to take it off. The heat is the key. A small propane torch cannot generate enough heat because it will dissipate into the head too quickly.. but that is worth a shot as well if you don't have the oxy-acet.

Last resort- a plasma cutter to blow the 1/4-20 out of the hole.
Depends on whether you have aluminum or iron heads.

Drilling an easy-out is nearly impossible... I have had to shatter them to get them out, and this causes its own set of new problems.