Frozen/broken idle screw

[svfrolic]

Hello,

I had a frozen idle mixture needle valve screw in my carb. I submerged whole part in WD-40 for a week and applied heat. On the end, as I expected screw snapped when I was using little force to remove it… So now I need to remove still frozen part of the screw.
I think about two solutions to remove it:
1. Use a screw extractor, but the screw is frozen in aluminum so it might be not easy
2. Drill and tap however I am not sure about the angle I should adjust drill press vise to…
Then I can use idle adjusting needle with knurled extension to replace it.
I can also ignore it since everything was adjusted right before I tried to “solve” the problem.

I wonder if anybody had similar problem and might have any advice.

Thank you,

Maciej
S/V Frolic-Ranger 29
maciejrynkiewicz@gmail.com

[67c&ccorv]

Pictures???

[Dave Neptune]

Stuck ouch

Maciej, a trick to removing stuck idle screws is to tap on them with a small hammer and then let soak then twist maybe repeat. The tapping should be "in-line" with the screw. This usually works as the spring holds against the screw and the tapping moves it in the thread sometimes aiding in breaking it loose. If you have any of the screw exposed you could still try and worry it out.
If you have to drill it out be very careful not to damage the threads to much as they are fine pitched and are quite small and easily damaged.
Also the heat you applied may have warped the housing so get out the straight edge.

Dave Neptune

[svfrolic]

Dave,

I tried all of this; tapping with the hammer, soaking with penetrating oil, moderate heating. Unfortunately it didn’t work and now I have no screw exposed. I am going to try the #1 screw extractor and if this doesn’t work I might drill and tap. And if I screw up again I would need to buy a new carb I guess…

Thank you,

Maciej