Broken Bolt, Broken Soul....

[Meleager7]

Saw this on FB today

Whether it's Paintball, or Automotive, Industrial , etc......has this nightmare ever happened to you!?? I'm sure when this happens, there happens to be lots of red loctite involved as well!

Tell your best nightmarish stories !

[Jordan]

Not really a broken bolt, but an apprentice at work stripped the drain plug threads on the car he was doing an oil change on.... at 4:30 pm... on a Friday... and guess who got to helicoil it.

[RAZRBAKK]

🫡🫡🫡

[Chuck E Ducky]

Still to this day I refuse to buy another Ford because of a Manifold gasket leak caused by over torqued pore quality fasteners. I’m still bitter about it.

[XEMON]

not really Loctite but more corroded fasteners without anticize ...
anticize exist for a reason ... specially with stainless-on stainless ...

[flyweightnate]

Stainless in stainless? *shudder*
Bumax, baby!

[Melrosejedi]

Funny this topic pops up being I’m dealing with an exhaust leak on my daughters Jeep. Four bolts hold on the cats to the exhaust manifold and if one snaps, we’re in a world of pain. Going to try to seal cat hole with high temp sealant before going there as the replacement pipe/ cats is 1400 bucks.

[Impactfour]

Work boats steering went out on a Friday when we started the hour long ride back to the docks. Took an hour or so to decide we were SOL and needed to use the bow thrusters to limp our way back.

[Magageddon]

I've had a few stripped allen screws on nice parts, I ended up using a hammer and tap to get it moving and also a generous amount of penetrating oil

[DocsMachine]

Rounded out Allen screws (especially fun when they're inside a trigger guard) hose fittings sealed with red Loctite, cross-threaded barrels, stripped screws where the owner used a sheetmetal screw instead...

My favorite, however, is probably this one: Somebody red-Loctited the valve nut in a 'Cocker, and a later owner managed to snap off the end of a valve tool in it later, trying to get it out. Tricky fix, but I was able to extract it, saving both valve and body.

Doc.

[Cdn_Cuda]

Sorcery!

[superman]

This thread needs more pics!!!

Customer valve that was sent in.

[DocsMachine]

[Yorkshireman] Luxury!



Doc.

[FredMnkyDad10]

My very first car. Bought it used senior year in high school for $500, with like 89k miles on it. The only time it broke on me was the water pump. My friend and I worked at a service station, yup gas and minor repairs. This was back in the days that late and early 90s car you pop the hood, there was room to work on them and you can figure out what was what

So replacing the water pump easy enough fix. taking the second bolt off the pump and head snaps clean off. Thankfully his dad had a helicoil kit. We learned how to cut ad drill out a bolt and helicoil. But yeah a 30 min job turned into a 4hr job.

When that car finally died on my it was likely running on 3-4, cylinders vs 6 and had 325k miles.

[Brokeass_baller]

What car was it?

[FredMnkyDad10]

It was 1982 Plymouth sapporo. It was a want to be mustang. At first glance it had the body style of the mustang, but the back round window. Chrysler had same version called challenger 2 if I remember right.

It also had inside the hood a little metal plack that said engine made by Mitsubishi.

[cougar20th]

Having worked on cars since my early teens I k ow the feel of the bolt I'm trying to remove breaking.

Worst was the manifold to pipe studs for my 89 Tbird SC. Due to space restrictions the engine had to come out. Which made a simple fix into a monstrously huge project.

[Millar156]

I have a cheapo Harbor Freight impact gun, labeled "Earthquake". It's has 3 forward settings and one reverse. Reverse is quite usable. The first forward setting is basically hand tight, second is ugga dugga tight, third is for snapping studs. My brother uses the garage and tools occasionally and has been warned about setting #3. He is no longer permitted to use that particular impact.

[cellophane]

This thread needs more pics!!!

Customer valve that was sent in.

What on earth am I looking at? It looks like a grease trap drain that needs cleaning.

[The Great Equalizer]

The bolt on the water pump pulley in my 1998 Subaru Outback snapped in Afton NY during my ride home from Pump Pandemonium 2012. I got to stay overnight at the Super 8 in Sidney NY, rent a Chevy Sonic in Binghamton NY and deal with mechanics (out of business now) in Afton who took 3 weeks to tell me I was screwed.

[glaman5266]

I have a bad habit of rounding out allen screws. Many times I've had to buy new hardware because I tend to over-torque things.

I need to get the two M6 screws out of the back of my Angel. None of my EZ-Outs fit, so I'm probably gonna have to cut into them & hope I can get a flathead to work.

[Jordan]

Try tapping a Torx bit in? I've gotten Allen head screws out that way before, the hammering helps loosen things up too.

[glaman5266]

Jordan I’ll give that a shot. Thanks.