Re: Water Pump woes, nearing end of tear down.

["content22207" <brobertson@xxxx>]

Have you ever used a helicoil thread insert? I'm afraid the driller
outers are correct on this one, and it is going to be extremely hard
to drill straight through the broken bolt. Your removal hole will most
likely end up off center or at an angle. But you can carefully work up
to a larger clean hole, tap it, and step yourself back down with a
helicoil. May end up SAE (my small town parts houses don't stock
metric helicoils), but at least pump will be snug.

Curious what happened? Steel and aluminum, in the presence of
moisture, weld themselves together. I've actually seen a graded steel
bolt take a hunk of aluminum out of an intake manifold. On the plus
side, your helicoil will eventually weld itself to the block better
than the original tapped hole, and the new bolt will be seated on
steel threads for easier removal next time.

Good luck.

Bill Robertson
#5939

>--- In dmcnews@xxxx, "James LaLonde" <deloreandmcxii@xxxx> wrote:
> All went well on my water pump removal save one tiny thing.
> The bottom mounting bolt broke!.. The pump is off, but only about 
> 1/8 - 1/4 inch of thread is sticking out of the mounting nub (nub?) 
> on the head.. and that little bit already rounded off from my vice 
> grips.
> I can't get a drill in there (even with no muffler in the way.. non-
> stock exhaust) to tap it, and I've tried even seeing if I could turn 
> it with a chisel. Being that there is a drain pug (I think it's the 
> water jacket plug... why it's on the top of the block.. I don't know. 
> fill me in on what that is) in the way, I can't drill from the back 
> either. I have some ground effects that would make removing the rear 
> facsia even less attractive an option that it was before... so i'm 
> trying to avoid that.
> 
> Any tips or tricks to removing such stubborn bolts??
> 
> Goddamn. It's such a simplistic engine. I love working on it cause 
> everything (pretty much) is easy to get to, and look at and replace. 
> But leaning over that rear facia just kills my back at knees.
> 
> I think once I get done putting back together my engine i'm going to 
> just epoxy coat the entire car.... it's funny how much I hate rust... 
> on my DeLorean.
> 
> Work -- DeLorean -- Sleep, that's my whole day lately.
> James 4009 when will get around to changing my userID?