mtnman82

So I pulled a rookie move and stripped out one, and only one, of the triplesquare bolts at the transaxle. I messed with it for quite some time last night, trying to use some bolt-outs, vice grips, etc. with no luck. I'm looking for ideas on how to get it out. The space looks too tight to get a drill in there to drill it out - this is on the side with the oil cooler. The car is up on blocks+ramps, so I can't turn the rear wheels, but the bolt is on the bottom, so I can get to it with vice-grips and such.

I've never had the need to drill out a bolt before .... when doing so, do you use a bit bigger than the bolt head to take off the whole head? Or is there some other method?

Any other suggestions/ideas would be greatly appreciated. I have a friend scheduled to come over in a bit to help me drop the tranxaxle (just an extra pair of hands to help), but now I'm stuck in dead in the water. Thanks in advance!!!

Bri Bro

If you drill it out larger then the bolt, you will run into problems. I had a issue with a parts car that required I remove a transaxle broken bolt. The machine shop said that it was the hardest steel they had ever worked with and it was a pain to tap... the pain was transferred to the bill. Try heat, maybe it has theadlock on it.

reno808

Heat it then try a good pair of vise grips with good teeth and turn away. i stripped a couple and thats the method i used.

2bridges

The PO on my car apparently used and impact and a torx bit to tighten. I ultimately tack welded a bolt... let it sit about two minutes (allow weld to cure and heat to penetrate) they all came right out.

I also had to perform this procedure for the clutch pressure plate bolts, and flywheel bolts

MM951

Turn it with small vise grips...

What I did for one that was at an impossible angle was drill thru the side of the head (HUGE PITA) and then stick whatever I could find in the hole and turned. I saved that one bolt as a testament to how much of a pita these cars can be

rcatherton

Sears makes a bolt extractor that grabs the outside of the bolt. It worked well on one of my stripped hex bolts on the turbo. I am not sure if there is enough room. If that fails, you can grind the head off flush with flange of the boot and pull the cv off. The shaft of the bolt should come out easily now. If not use a collet style extractor.

theedge

Yes, get the Sears Bolt Outs I think they are called. They look like a socket with teeth inside. Those worked great for me, where visegrips and such failed.

mtnman82

I just got back from dropping the kids off at Sunday school, and I stopped by Home Depot on the way back to buy a set of easy outs. BUT, I'm reluctant to try them because those bolts are so hard, which is also why I'm thinking the vice grips are having a tough time grabbing.

If I was a welder, I think tacking on another bolt or something like that sounds like a great idea. I'm wishing I had some of that equipment abouts now ...

I actually have the sears bolt extrator set, which is what I mentioned above and tried using last night. Unfortunately there's not enough troom for those. The Sears extractors require you to use a wrench or socket to turn them. I found a very similar set at HD that will let me use a 3/8" drive ratchet, so I'm going to go try that now. I still don't think there's enough room for those even.

If the new extractors, or heat + vice-grips,don't work, I think I'm going to try drilling through the side and sticking an allen wrench in there to try turning, and if that fails I guess I'll grind (maybe cut it off with a dremel? maybe too hard for that) the head off. Thanks for the ideas everyone!!!

caster951

No need to use bolt outs, etc. on those stripped cv bolts. Take a 12 or 13mm 12 point socket. I think it is a 12mm, hammer it onto the cv bolt head, should be a tight fit, and a ratchet should twist it right off. I have used that method many times successfully.

mtnman82

I just came back to post another question, and saw castor's method. Think I'll give that a try too.

2bridges- did you tack weld using a hand propane torch or something more extarvagent? I have a hand torch I was going to use to heat up the bolt with ...

Van

if you do drill it, use a drill bit that's just larger than the diameter of the shank of the bolt. This way, you're only drilling a small amount of material, and then the head will pop off. This will allow you to take the CV joint off, then use vice grips to unscrew it.

I've also had great success welding a second old bolt with a hex head onto the head of a stripped bolt. But you need a welder for that.

Good luck!

ibkevin

Good suggestions, but mtn you are making this hard on yourself.

As said, cut/grind the head flush to the CV boot flange, remove the remaining bolts, remove shaft. You really should have used jack stands so you can spin the wheels, it makes the job much easier.

2bridges

no - I used mig welder....

you will want to be carefull not to overheat the area if you intend to reuse CV and wheel bearing.

hosrom_951

I was able to hammer a torx key in my parts car and used that to take out one of those bolts.

mtnman82

Got it! I heated it up with a propane torch very carefully (don't think I melted any rubber on the cv boot) and tried the vice grips again, but still no grip. The next size up (M10) triplesquare was too big to pound in, so I got the M8 again and whapped on it a few times to drive it in good and solid. I applied as much pressure as I could with one hand while I turned with the other very slowly and it broke loose. The air compresser was fired up in prep for grinding the head off if that didn't work. Thanks for all the ideas. Now if I can just get that damn cheesehead bolt for the torque tube above the oil cooler out, I can finally get the transaxle out.