[Vwdiesel] Broken Bleeder Valves

[Nate Wall]

I forgot to mention that the bleeder bolts w/ dust cap
are available separately.

About 1977, when I first began working on cars, I
broke off the upper shock mounting bolt on the front
end of my first car, a '64 Bug. No sweat, I thought,
I'll Easy Out it." I drilled a hole into what was left
of the bolt, and was proud of myself for drilling
pretty much on center! Tapped and threaded in the easy
out, and gave a twist to extract the whole mess. The
Easy Out broke clean off, and I never got it out, even
after what seemed like hours messing w/ it. I ended up
unbolting the front end and taking it to a machine
shop in the folks '68 Ford Ranch Wagon. The machinist
gave me a lecture about Easy Outs and said they may
have to burn it out with a laser. Never did find out
how they got it out, but it sure was expensive, both
in time/effort and money. I avoid Easy Outs like the
plague now. My $.02 worth.

--Nate
--- Al Stumbaugh <alstum at visuallink.com> wrote:
> Many, many years ago I worked with a machinist.
> He would drill the biggest hole he could in
> the broken bolt/screw/whatever, then use a
> tiny set of chisles with a "U" shaped
> cutting edge. He called them "Caping Chisels"
> to cut a groove into the hole he had drilled.
> This groove would releave the pressure and
> sometimes that was enough.
>
> He would stop before he got to the threads
> cut into the metal the screw was threaded
> into. Then he would take a small punch
> and tap the edge of the screw on one side
> of the groove. Most of the time the metal
> would crack at the bottom of the groove
> and the stub would thread right out.
>
> When I lived overseas and had to do this,
> I would take a fine toothed hacksaw blade
> and grind off the back side of the blade
> to make a tiny saw just long enough to
> reach the bottom of the hole I had drilled
> into the stub of the bolt. Used a cup of
> ice water and dipped the hacksaw blade
> into the water every few seconds to keep
> the blade from overheating. In a few minutes
> I had a poor man's caping chisel. It
> usually worked for me.
>
> The square easy outs are the best, but are
> hard to find. The kind with the tapered
> left hand screw thread are almost useless.
>
> An alternative is a left hand twist drill
> bit. Industrial Supply houses often carry
> them.
>
> My two cents for today.
>
> Al
> -- WebMail
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> vwdiesel at vwfans.com
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