John Speake

Ah ! Loctite :-(

rexpontius

what bolts are we talking about here? the bolts holding the valve covers? Good (well not for the poster off course) to read this, I wanted to remove mine this winter, but I will think twice now :-)

What is the best way to remove the bolts without breaking them?
Cheers

tmpusfugit

If there is any good news in regard to broken off valve cover bolts it has to be they are made of a soft and free machining steel. that means they can be center punched, drilled out, and re-tapped to correct thread size, all pretty easy, if you can get clear access to them. (Famous last words when the engine is still in the car) Using a left hand drill does not work well on these, unless they have been out previously and do not have Loctite on them. If they have Loctite getting sufficient heat on them to allow them to be backed out is not easy. On the 2 or 3 I had to drill out I was lucky as they were all accessible with the engine in the car. Holding the drill so that it cuts straight into the bolt is the biggest problem while leaning over a fender….and it does need to be pretty straight…..as I recall I used a 1/8” drill bit which was close to the needed size, but then drilled it to the correct size in a second pass…then re-tapped them….

I have a long story with photos about how (not) to remove 2 stripped Allen head bolts in 16V cam covers, but that does not help this OP.

Dadddio

Not sure if you see them or not.
PS bottom bolts 1st and 2nd from the front.
Fuel line and hose in the way.

Dadddio

Here're the pics.

JHowell37

Were these things already broken, or did you break them while trying to remove them?

GregBBRD

You need to heat these until the "Green" Loctitie they installed them with smokes. You will be able to smell it.

It is best to drill the hole in them, before you heat them, heat them until you can see the smoke and smell the Loctite, immediately insert the correct "easy out" tool, and remove them. Keep in miond that if the removal tool changes color from the heat, it is going to be brittle and you should probably throw it away, before you use it on the "next one". You need to be quick.

If you do it this way, getting them out is pretty easy.

I've seen literally dozens of these things screwed up, by someone trying to remove them. Broken drills, broken easy outs, and broken cylinder heads are common.

This was such a huge mistake that Porsche superceeded the hardware so that it looked and functioned much like the '87-'95 hardware...which will not interchange, BTW. That "superceeded" hardware has been NLA, for years, BTW.

Dadddio

I broke these.
I torched em pretty good, but not so lucky on these 2.
The others came out with the torch.
The other side had 5 broken.
Fortunately they weren't the bottom ones.
I drilled them out re-tapped, like new.
I don't mind drilling them, but I can't get a drill at the 2nd one.

Mrmerlin

FWIW if you need to do any heating on the block/heads it is wise to remove the coolant first,
this way the heat will stay in the parts your trying to get hot,
with the coolant in the block the heat will dissipate very quickly

GregBBRD

The problem occurs as a result of people tightening down the valve cover bolts multiple times. The bolts finally bottom out in the male/female stud piece in the head and then "galls" as the bolt is removed, resulting in the male/female stud shearing off.

They used "uber" Loctite so that the male/female stud would not come loose when the valve cover bolts were removed.

Porsche originally designed the male/female pieces so that hardware did not have to come in and out of the cylinder heads multiple times. They "gave up" on this idea with the introduction of the '87 engine. They also redesigned the '85/'86 hardware to be like the '87 hardware. When the "updated" pieces were available, the "updated" hardware was about $750 for both covers.

Seems like a huge price, but worth every penny, if you've ever had to try and extract broken male/female studs, from these heads.

JHowell37

Since your motor mounts are probably shot, one thing you can do to increase access is place a small bottle jack under the passenger side of the engine. There are 4 little feet/mounting tabs on the AC compressor that you can lift on. You're not going to be lifting much, so the weight isn't so great that you'll break the compressor or anything. But by lifting the side, you might be able to get at those from a better angle.