Melting snapped bolts out of cast iron?
 

I snapped another bolt off in the hotside of my turbo when I pulled the engine last week. Anyway I really am not in the mood to drill em all out and retap them to a larger size cause I doubt I'll get them all perfect and an easy out is bound to break before they're all done.

Anyone ever heated up cast iron with a torch to melt out a bolt?

My cousin says just to melt broken bolts out. He says he used to do it all the time on cast spindles and ---- workin on the farm growing up. Anyone got any experience? Obviously I'd take the hotside off the turbo so it was just a chunk of cast iron and I wouldn't be ------- up the center section.

If it worked and I could just chase the threads after with a tap I'd be in heaven.

Let me know you're guys input.

Re: Melting snapped bolts out of cast iron?
 

you go ahead and try that and let me know how that goes. :y

Re: Melting snapped bolts out of cast iron?
 

Actually it is possible. My neighbor helped me do this once on a cast iron exhaust manifold. We tried drilling it out with no luck, and he said ---- it ill just melt it out. Heated the bitch up nice and hot, and just blew it the ---- out of there with the torch. It did warp the flange a little, (nothing a little grinding couldnt fix) and i had to retap it one size bigger, but it worked.

Re: Melting snapped bolts out of cast iron?
 

Ive torched hundreds of exhaust bolts out and thats something you can do to an exhaust but theres no way you could get me to do that to a turbo, it gets pretty messy sometimes.

Re: Melting snapped bolts out of cast iron?
 

take the housing off

bring it to my place


problem solved in 10mins, the caps blew on my drillpress so i can hand spinstart it backwards. aka use an easy out and just hog the bit downwards

Re: Melting snapped bolts out of cast iron?
 

Try heating it up, then melt a candle into it. The wax will wick in, expand upon cooling. and you should be able to use an easy-out to remove it.

Provided its not crossthreaded or threads were boogered up

Re: Melting snapped bolts out of cast iron?
 

maybe not as bad as a evo some douche mcbaggins worked on before. Sad when the dirt bag will not build vacumm when the engine only has 50k on it! Drill bite eater

Re: Melting snapped bolts out of cast iron?
 

Weld a new nut on top of the bolt. Place same size nut on bolt stub, fill with weld from MIG. Nut should be glowing red from this and usually the thermal expansion is enough to break it free too. Spray with your favorite penetrant to wick it in.

If you have cutting torch, you can usually blast it out of there and it wont touch the cast iron... if you're careful.

Another tip I've heard is to use a cutting torch, and head the bolt till it's glowing whitish... then shut off all fuel and blast it with oxygen. Supposedly it'll blast it out of there like a plasma cutter, but wont harm the cast iron.

Personally, I've only done the nut welding procedure and it's worked all the times I've used it.

Re: Melting snapped bolts out of cast iron?
 

i go to the machine shop here at get it lasered out for $20 and it almost always saves the threads... :6

Re: Melting snapped bolts out of cast iron?
 

My old friend took my housing to his friend's machine shop. They used some sort of vibration machine (ultrasonic?) to shatter the steel bolt & broke easyout embeded in it. Basicly it disintigrates harder metal before it does soft cast iron. At least that's what he claimed. The threads were actually still rusty afterwards, and no apparent lasering.

Otherwise just get it machined out & retap. If they center it properly, it they will just have to grab the remaining thread coil and pull it out like complex does his tampon. :P Try the weld-on method first if you have a decent MIG/TIG welder. Worst case it rips off and leaves a little more material behind.