Anybody have any advise to get a few water pump bolts out so I can change my water pump? I have the type of bolts that are the torx type screws!!! I had the proper size tips but a few came out easy and some are in there good!! I do not want to strip them out, I am going to buy new torx heads in case my old ones were worn maybe, but other them that has anyome ever had this problem? Any advise would be welcomed, The car is half torn down now and I need to get it back on the road!!! Thanks! By the way this is a 6 cylinder 2.8 engine 87 firebird

 

once those things get stripped then thats it, only thing i can suggest is making sure you have good pressure on it when your trying to get it out...mayb have a friend push the bit and ratchet in, while you pull the ratchet and make it come loose. how much of this are you planning on saving? if you have a real hard time you can just cut off the head and remove the pump, then with some vicegrips get the rest of the bolt out of theaded hole. and when your installing it next time around, get hex bolts, you can put more torque on them, frankly i dont know why they used torx heads on something like that.

 

your right, thats what i said, why use that type of bolt on that!!! Well, I will try again tomorrow and hope I can get them out, worse case I can try to cut them like you said.

 

ya its not a problem cutting them, i bet the bolt is locked onto the waterpump and has frozen itself on, if you do cut it away, itll be easy to get the shaft of the bolt out, i dont imagine it being tight in the threads, it very rarely is.

 

Nasty!
I'd put normal bolts in there after, if you can. I've never done that to a V6, but if it's easy to use normal or allen bolts, i'd do that.

That's a great idea right there. If they're really in there, you can use a pipe wrench rather than vice grips. They tend to work better for me.

You can try a torch, heat up, then cool the bolt really fast. Or PB blaster, etc. They do rust in there pretty commonly. I'd reccomend you use a nice teflon sealant on the new bolts when you put them in.

 

What size are the bolts anyway ? I may have lost a few of them uhmmm heh .. 3/8-16NC thread, but what length ? And one of them should be a stud type, correct ?