Safety reminder

[Dark Knight]

(Before ya'll start reading, keep in mind that I'm a country boy and work on a farm, just so everything will make sense) I know this has nothing to do with 67-72 trucks, but I did drive my '67 to work Wednesday, so maybe that counts. Just a little reminder, take your time with your project and please wear the proper safety gear. I was changing the water pump out on a Jeep with a Buick 225 V6. Just your simple, routine, water pump change. All of the bolts came out except for that pesky last one. I knew the head was going to break off, so I said "to heck with it" and broke it off anyway. Then, I was left with a broken bolt to remove. I tried welding a nut to it. That broke off. Then, I tried using a pair of Vise-Grips on what was left of the bolt. It broke off flush with the pump housing. Screw extractor time. Bad idea. I drilled a hole all the way through the bolt and inserted the extractor. I turned it to the left, but it wouldn't budge. Me being the idiot I am, decided to put a little more force on it, not even thinking about all the other stuff that had broken before. The extractor broke in half and left a nice little shard of metal sticking out, just long enough to cut my hand open. So my hand was immediately covered with blood, and left a trail all the way to the breakroom. My co-worker brought me a cloth and I grabbed some electrical tape from the parts room to keep pressure on it. The nurses at the ER loved my makeshift bandage and were surprised when I told them that my pain was a barely a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10. Long story short, I had to get two stitches. Heck, the part that hurt the most was when they gave me the shots of local anesthetic. Then, as soon as my bosses wife brought me back to the barn, what do I do? I went right back to work and got that stupid bolt out. Drilled it and tapped it. So the moral of the story is, wear safety gear and know when to take a break. Oh yeah, and don't use screw extractors, they're junk. Your project will be there when you get back. On the plus side, I got a free lunch out of it! Might just have to hurt the other hand soon...

[68 Stepside]

Good heads-up. Moving this to the shop safety section, hope you heal up quickly.

[Altec]

Don't be mean to easy outs/screw extractors! They work great for the job they were designed for. It was obvious that the bolt in question wasn't going to come out after it broke off twice.

Extractors are simply for use with bolts/nuts that you can't get the proper tool on. They do nothing for seized bolts.

At least you got lunch out of the deal though! Hope the hand heals soon!

[Dark Knight]

Yeah, the free lunch was nice. I still hate screw extractors though. They've very rarely worked for me. I now prefer the shoehorn a bigger bolt in via drill and tap method. Come to think of it, the day it happened, the bolt that tightens the adjuster on the A/C compressor on our Suzuki Sidekick broke off as well. Today my dad has the nerve to ask me if I'm ever going to get it out. I just held up my hand, pointed at the stitches, and said not just no, but heck no. (Well, that heck might've been heard as something else to the right set of ears...).

[fryer1979]

I just stumbled on this thread, and was reading through the original story and I just had to laugh.....I have almost the exact same story. The only difference in mine was that I was working on an inline 6 in a 91 Bronco, and my bandage included a blue shop towell. Other than that pretty much word for word, and the last time I ever tried to use an easy out. That was a little over 6 years ago and I still have a scar on my wrist from where the easy out shard went in.

Something I learned on the next broken bolt (here's a little country boy/redneck ingenuity for ya): Take your torch and heat the hell out of the bolt and surface. Once it gets hot enough, push a candle against the point where the bolt enters the block so that wax flows into the threads. Do this a few times, then let it cool a bit (though not completely). Grab a hold with a set of vise-grips, and 4 out of 5 times that broken bolt will thread right out. I tried this once out of desperation, and it made my day when it actually worked. Needles to say, I have kept a stock of candles in my tool box since. If that doesn't work, I'll cut the bolt off then drill and tap it.

[ETsC10]

Thanks fryer1979 for bringing this thread back to our
attention and, also, thanks for the candle tip!! I'm filing it
in my "hey maybe try this" area of my brain!

[Dark Knight]

Huh. I didn't think anyone ever read the posts in this section. Just in case y'all were wondering, the scar is barely noticeable now. You have to actually look for it to find it.