Stripped valve cover bolt! Please help!

[revhardSHO]

I chose to clean the intake manifold since it was such a beautiful spring day and now I've really done it. I decided to re-seated the rear valve cover and as fate would have it, I stripped the last valve cover bolt when I was torqueing it back down. I am assuming I need to drill it out and use a helicoil. Does anyone have any recommendations here? Please help!

Please see attached file for reference.

 

[luigisho]

You are correct. I forget the size but if you take a valve cover bolt to the store you should be able to measure the threaded end to find out which helicoil size to buy. I busted mine on the ones even closer to the firewall which really sucks. You have to eye up the drill and see if you need a more compact one or a right angle type. It's been over a decade since I had to do it. Just take your time and make sure you get a small sharp punch to get the middle of the sheared bolt ready to accept the drill bit. I had good luck with those craftsman extractor bits but most stuff should work. If you got lucky maybe there is enough bolt sticking out of the hole and you can get some vice grips on it

 

[zak]

Did the bolt snap off in the hole?

If not, see if you can save it - try a bottoming tap by itself. These don't hold a lot of torque (7 ft lbs).

 

[luigisho]

Yeah and if you can extract the bottom part of the bolt without ruining the threads in the hole you can get away with just a replacement bolt. It's possible

 

[OG-SHOguy]

drill two holes and get a spanner on it, then replace it when you get it out.