Don't Break The Bolts !

The most challenging feat in restoring my 79 Pontiac Trans Am was the water pump. The culprit? The most critical of four studs holding the water pump to the block had broken off flush with the block. Most likely it was sheared off when someone made an attempt to replace the pump. Years of use and weather had completely rusted the stud to the block. I drilled a hole and hammered in an extractor, which promptly broke when I tried to back out the stud.

Knowing what I know today, I would go straight  to drilling out the stud and tapping the hole. The "easy-out" extractor is no solution, just an additional headache to building my muscle car hardened steel stud has broken off because the threads are locked, an extractor with a similar diameter is also likely to break.

Nothing would drill out the hardened steel extractor. The tool acturer of the extractor even mailed a special bit to me at no cost. The procedure was to drill dry, no lubricants, using good pressure and high speed. I am a tenacious guy and able to get the most stubborn nuts in the most difficult places to reach, but this was impossible.

The trick was to heat the block surrounding the stud sufficiently so as not to cause too much of a temperature difference, which could crack the block. This was done with an oxyacetylene torch without oxygen--just gas, nice and easy. Once the surrounding area was hot, the welder hit the stud with a blast of oxygen gas mixture, which ignited the stud and extractor. Once the smoke settled I had a rough hole I could drill out, tap, and insert a helical thread into to get to the original thread size--and fortunately, no cracks.
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