I was removing the black cover at the bottom of the car. Can't remember what it's called, but it covers the radiator and most of the front of the engine bay from the ground. Anyways, a bunch of these bolts broke while i was removing them due to the rust. Now, how do I go about removing these? The heads of these bolts are gone, but the stems are still in the hole and they don't stick out enough for me to grab onto it with pliers to screw the rest out.

Should I drill through these bolts? Or how would I properly remove these bolts? I'm sure many of you have encountered this situation. Thanks!

 

I drill them out and re-tap them. Usually snap off at least one per car.

 

you should have used PB Blaster on them....

 

I'll try that next time. If only I'd known about his before I went at it.

what do you mean by re-tap them?

 

just got a turbo, broke the heads off the bolts that held the hotside back plate on, **** happens

 

yeah I snapped a bunch off too. my solution is to jsut re drilla c ouple ties and secure with zip ties

 

that would work if the strap could reach around the hole to zap in, but unfortunately, the location of most of the holes holding it in place doesn't work

 

yeah thats why I drilled new holes. you have two sets of tw holes that way the strap wraps around the plastic between the holes

 

You drill out the broken bolt and tap new threads. Anyone working on an older car should have a good tap and die set.

 

I just ran in tek screws right next to where they broke off.

 

You could try a screw extractor. Drill a small hole in the screw, put the extractor in your drill, and unscrew the screw. Extractors are very cheap. (Http://www.mytoolstore.com/hanson/extractr.html for example. Extractors are available at most hardware stores.)

On the downside, they can be bitch to use. I just broke the bits off in both of the screw that hold the bottom of the front fender to my car. This is going to be a pain in the *** to fix.

 

Yes I have done the exact same thing with mine, broke off a couple bolts. When I go to put that black piece back on I will try to drill some of them back out...