It’s probably the one of the worst mechanic nightmares snapping off a bolt in the worst (or expensive) place. I had one recently by undoing an old V8 CAT engine cylinder heads. One bolt was already damaged, with fatigue and stretch marks and just snapped without using any force.
The plan was just to refurbish cylinder heads and the last thing you need a rusty broken bolt lurking in a block and messing everything up. First cry of help – try to get that bit out. And main tools for that, of course, bolt extractors. Here I have 3 different type ones and just wanted to share my experience working with them.
The first one is the most common, can find almost in any DIY store. And quite frankly, suitable only to extract candles from the birthday cake. So many tries and so many failures!
Middle extractor is the most brutal of all 3 in my opinion. Drill a hole and just hammer that thing in. And even the shape is made to suit different sizes of drills. If you accidentally round smaller diameter extractor edges you can drill bigger hole, hammer it in more and try again. This boy worked me a threat getting broken cylinder head bolt out.
The last one is less brutal but gives you more confidence. Comes with right size drills to drill the bolt out and then hammer extractor in and using special sockets to hold it can work it out using spanners. Sharp edges cuts into the bolt/stud well and gives you more confidence to loosen it out. The only scary thing is, that once you hammer extractor in – it’s difficult to hammer it out if you still can’t get bolt out. Or if you break extractor while it’s there – you screwed.
