Found these at the Home Depot, in the Tools section, with the tap-and-die stuff. Bolt Extractors, by Irwin (the Vise-Grip people) A set of 5 (3/8" - 5/8") with a little case, was $25, and in my opinion, money well spent. They work great on rusty/rounded off bolts, like AIR fittings and exhaust manifold bolts. They were a great help during my 'smog delete' project.

They use a spiral flute, kinda like an inside-out 'Easy-Out,' to grab the bolt head. They're made out of high-carbon tool steel, so they're tough, and suprisingly heavy, compared to a simillar size socket. They have a 3/8" square drive and a hex body, so you can use a ratchet or a box wrench to drive them. I used a ratchet and socket, like on a sparkplug socket.

Good tool to have; Strongly Reccomended!

 

Craftsman also makes those and a set of 13 different sizes goes for about $50.00 + tax at Sears. They also have smaller sets of them for $20.00 + tax. I got a set for Xmas and like them. They also have a set of screw extractors that don't require drilling a hole in the head of the screw. It also goes for about $20.00 + tax. I believe it has four different size bits in the set.

 

Yea it comes with 4 bits. They are only good for small screws that you can apply a lot of downward force on. They do not work for any medium sized bolts. I have tried to use them numerous times on my car and every attempt was a failure. They are good for screws that are stuck in plastic or wood. They are not good for smog pump bolts

 

I have had good success using them to remove some good size screws from the wing fuel panels and other areas of large aircraft and they definitely were not installed in wood or plastic. BTW, why would you use a screw extractor like that on a bolt?

 

The worst bolt of them all, a pan head torx. I eventually ground some flat spots on it and then got some vice grips on it.

 

When I bought my car I didn't have the key for the 4 locking lug nuts. I stopped at a random garage in town and the guy had this sockets. He said it was from Snap-On. He zipped those lug locks off in like 2 seconds. But it defeats the point of having wheel locks.

 

AAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! Okay, I can see your reasoning on that. Maybe one day we should be so lucky as to see a good set of extractors for that come out. I wish, played hell getting some of those out of my runners at the intake manifold. The previous owner did me no small favor by rounding out 6 of them in areas that were not readily or easily accessable to tools. This included the inside one at the back of the manifold on the drivers side.

 

I used them to get GM locking lugnuts off a parts car I bought. Hammered the socket on with a big metal mallet hammer and drove them off with an impact gun. If they weren't craftsman I wouldn't pound them on with a hammer though. Gotta love free replacements.

 

i have a set from blue point. never used one yet but it's hard to pass up getting new tools.