Broken Rear Hood Bracket Bolt Extraction Questions

[Cwynn]

I recently did a lot of work to my '93 SHO (cam swap, gaskets, waterpump, 60k top and front, etc.) and while removing the hood, the rear hood bolt that bolts through the top of the fender snapped off on the driver's side. The bolt snapped off flush and I'm trying to figure out the best way to go about removing it. I thought about removing the fenders to access the bolt from the bottom, however it appears that there is a metal bracket in the way.

Does anyone have any suggestions to make this job a bit easier? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

-C. Wynn

 

[dpsutphin]

If you can get to it with a drill, either drill a hole in the center of the bolt, and use a broken bolt tool (sometimes called an "easy out"), or use a left handed (reverse cut) drill bit. Usually between the two, most any boken bolt can be removed. You should be able to get the easy out kit at any hardware or auto parts store. The left handed drill bits you can get at someplace like Northern Tool Company.

Use copious amounts of PB Blaster before trying to remove it.

Good luck.

 

[93rev2sev]

Punch it out with a hammer. I had the same issue.
The "nut" is spot welded into a square-ish hole about 1/2" wide.
Once the nut is out, you CAN get your fingers up in there from the fenderwell to put a large washer/nut on a bolt coming from the top.
It seems like a PITA, but I could see no alternative because drilling it resulted in a broken bit...thats when I whacked it with a hammer and realized why the bit broke. The welded nut was coming loose anyway. As I drilled, it moved slightly...broken bit.

 

[fstfwd]

If you have access to a mig welder, put a nut over it just the size of the bolt. Reach in and weld the nut to the broken bolt. Then just remove after it has cooled a bit.

 

[Cwynn]

If you have access to a mig welder, put a nut over it just the size of the bolt. Reach in and weld the nut to the broken bolt. Then just remove after it has cooled a bit.

I do own a mig welder. I don't have any easy-outs so I may give this a try first. I've never used the welder for anything else other than sheetmetal and pipe welding, but that seems easy enough. Thanks for the tips!

 

[Cwynn]

For anyone who's interested, I'm posting an update to the thread:

If you have access to a mig welder, put a nut over it just the size of the bolt. Reach in and weld the nut to the broken bolt. Then just remove after it has cooled a bit.

This is what I first attempted. Out of the 4 bolts, 3 broke off in the square nuts. I tried welding a washer onto the broken bolt pieces, and then finished it with a steel nut welded to both the bolt piece and the washer. When I tried to back the bolt out, the nut just snapped off just as the bolt head did. It was broken off so flush with the fenderwell that weld just couldn't penetrate the way I needed it to. After the frustration with that, I resorted to this:

Punch it out with a hammer. I had the same issue.
The "nut" is spot welded into a square-ish hole about 1/2" wide.
Once the nut is out, you CAN get your fingers up in there from the fenderwell to put a large washer/nut on a bolt coming from the top.
It seems like a PITA, but I could see no alternative because drilling it resulted in a broken bit...thats when I whacked it with a hammer and realized why the bit broke. The welded nut was coming loose anyway. As I drilled, it moved slightly...broken bit.

I had to feed a nut/washer combo up through the wheel wells and position it underneath the holes for the latches. I ended up bending a clothes hanger and using that to position the nut. It was a LOT easier than trying to contort my arm in a painful way.

Finally the weather is nice and I can enjoy working on my SHO again. Thanks for all the replies, you helped kick-start the brainstorming process for this problem!