I've broken an extractor in a bolt that broke on the upper alternator bolt hole on the head of my 87 z28. I was thinking of a custom lower bracket that doesn't require the head accessories but about the only ones I've found require a short water pump. Can I maybe drill and tap a 3/8 hole just a little lower and get away that or are there any better ideas you guys have besides swapping heads because it's my daily driver!

 

can you get another much smaller hole down along the edge of the extractor? or a mig welder?

 

serpentine setup?
if so, you might be able to get by with that bolt missing as long as all the braces are intact.

 

That won't work. It's the setup with a v-belt on the power steering and serpentine on the water pump and alternator. I thought about maybe trying to convert to full serpentine if I could find the right donor. Will any setup work? I'm concerned the fuel lines might get in the way plus I don't have the air pump installed.

 

You will spend FAR more, take FAR longer, and cause yourself FAR more grief, by all this "get out of doing what I have to do" crap, than if you just meet it head-on and deal with it.

"Daily driver" doesn't matter.

Pop the head off and take it to a machine shop. Car-pool for a couple of days. It's not the end of the world.

In the end, I just have to ask; WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP TRYING TO USE THOSE STOOOPID THINGS? I have never, EVER, not even ONE SINGLE TIME, seen one those work. Now granted, I've only been in this hobby 40 some-odd years, so I'm still quite the n00b, and just getting started; but you'd THINK, if it was possible for them to work and not do EXACTLY what just happened here, that at least ONCE, somebody would have got a bolt out with one. But no.... this is how it ALWAYS ends... yet, people keep on buying them. Next time you see somebody ask how to get a broken or stuck bolt out, help them out; make sure you tell them, DON'T USE AN EZ-OUT. You now have the experience to know better.

 

The trick to the easy out is knowing how and when to PROPERLY use them.
I have only broken 2 in my 30plus years of using them, granted I only use them maaaybe 3 times a year.

 

This is the second time the bolt broke and the ez out took the first one out just fine. I probably should have just thrown it away in case it weakened.

 

Holy cow - sofa you're still here preaching eh?

Ez outs work great -- if the bolt isn't in there too tight. However - if you've snapped a bolt head off, you already know how tight it's in there.... Tight enough to snap off an easy out, making for a VERY bad day. That being the case, if you break off a bolt, and start to use an ez-out, make sure you've soaked it in PB-blaster, or heated it up-etc to break it loose. Otherwise you'll be where you are now...

You can't skip the bolt, and you can't drill another hole. You're stuck either trying to use pliers (I can't visualize where this bolt is, or how much is sticking out of the hole..?) - or taking the head to a machine shop