Hi All! Been a prolific consumer of the wisdom provided in this forum for years now and figured you all might like to know how I conquered a nightmare.
For years I have eyed my water jacket cover with suspicion knowing that sooner or later I was going to have to deal with opening it up and cleaning out whatever nasty beasts were hiding in there. A recent pressure flush dislodged a bit of crud that caused me to put it at the top of the winter projects list. Attached is a picture showing the degree of corrosion of the bolt heads. Sure enough, they all twisted off an broke when I tried to remove them leaving me with 8 stubs with 2 or three threads exposed. I tried PB Blasting and grabbing with a vise grip but that seemed to yield nothing.
After a full weekend of scraping and cleaning out the solid block of crud, from the jacket, I had to come up with a way to get those bolts out of the holes. BTW, I found that a stiff wire about a foot long in a drill motor with a hook and a twist in the end will act like a roto rooter snake and free up a lot of gunk. After much chiseling, sucking with a shop vac, flushing and picking with a magnet got me a pile of crud out of there the size of a baseball, not including the fines that got washed away.
Ultimately it was the stubs that saved the day and I fashioned a jig using a simple piece of plate 1/4" thick 1" x 6" with several 5/16 holes drilled in it and several mild steel bolts that I drilled 1/8" and 3/16" holes all the way through the long axis and a 5/16" hole is then reemed (is that a word) in the bolt head about a 1/4" deep. That 5/16 hole allows the bolt head to rest on the block flange with the stub centered in the bolt head. The jig is held in place with a small C clamp and the jig bolt is seated on the stub with a few hammer taps. Once the 1/8" hole is drilled through the stub, I flipped the jig around to the 3/16" hole and drill the 3/16" hole through the stub. I is then a simple drill out of the remainder using a 1/4" drill and cleaning out the thread holes with a 5/16 tap.
I got 7 out of 8 almost perfect using this method and the 8th was just a bit sloppy. I set all of them in a bed of JW Weld after I greased the studs with wax. Then installed the plate on top of washers to keep the plate from being stuck to the block.
So what do you all think of this way of drilling out the stubs from the block?
Will post a few more pictures later.
For years I have eyed my water jacket cover with suspicion knowing that sooner or later I was going to have to deal with opening it up and cleaning out whatever nasty beasts were hiding in there. A recent pressure flush dislodged a bit of crud that caused me to put it at the top of the winter projects list. Attached is a picture showing the degree of corrosion of the bolt heads. Sure enough, they all twisted off an broke when I tried to remove them leaving me with 8 stubs with 2 or three threads exposed. I tried PB Blasting and grabbing with a vise grip but that seemed to yield nothing.
After a full weekend of scraping and cleaning out the solid block of crud, from the jacket, I had to come up with a way to get those bolts out of the holes. BTW, I found that a stiff wire about a foot long in a drill motor with a hook and a twist in the end will act like a roto rooter snake and free up a lot of gunk. After much chiseling, sucking with a shop vac, flushing and picking with a magnet got me a pile of crud out of there the size of a baseball, not including the fines that got washed away.
Ultimately it was the stubs that saved the day and I fashioned a jig using a simple piece of plate 1/4" thick 1" x 6" with several 5/16 holes drilled in it and several mild steel bolts that I drilled 1/8" and 3/16" holes all the way through the long axis and a 5/16" hole is then reemed (is that a word) in the bolt head about a 1/4" deep. That 5/16 hole allows the bolt head to rest on the block flange with the stub centered in the bolt head. The jig is held in place with a small C clamp and the jig bolt is seated on the stub with a few hammer taps. Once the 1/8" hole is drilled through the stub, I flipped the jig around to the 3/16" hole and drill the 3/16" hole through the stub. I is then a simple drill out of the remainder using a 1/4" drill and cleaning out the thread holes with a 5/16 tap.
I got 7 out of 8 almost perfect using this method and the 8th was just a bit sloppy. I set all of them in a bed of JW Weld after I greased the studs with wax. Then installed the plate on top of washers to keep the plate from being stuck to the block.
So what do you all think of this way of drilling out the stubs from the block?
Will post a few more pictures later.
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