broken easyout

was removing the passenger side leaf spring in my 99 xj and snapped the front bolt. i drilled it out and then tried an easy-out on it that ended up snapping in the hole.

i have tried to drill out the easy out, drill around it to try to pop it out, hammer and punch to try to break it up, used a dremal to try to cut a slot in it and try to unscrew it with a hammer and punch. only thing that i have not tried that i was told might work is a carbide masonary bit in a hammer drill. any other ideas that might work?

Pure unobtainium, nuclear weapons, or you could try torching it then quenching it with penetrating lube. Hit it harder with the punch, maybe EDM if you really get stuck... though getting someone to bring an EDM machine to the vehicle is gonna cost a bundle.

Easy-Out. Poorly chosen name for those tools, isn't it?

Cut the bolt off next to the frame with a sawzall, looks like you are going through the unibody to put a new nut in there.

EZ Snap! would be a more appropriate name

Ex out's aren't. Broke one big mother in a frame bolt on a yj, front top [thank god] bumper bolt. I did drill it out with a 3/4" Milwaukee and good bit and lots of lube, took a couple of hours so I'm thankful it was on top.

an "Easy Out" wont work if the bolt is frozen, your going to need to cut the bolt on either side of the leaf spring and take it from there

i already have the leaf pack out by sawzalling it and ill have to try heating it some more. wsa thinkin if i found any of that new loctite freeze n release stuff try and shrink the bolt out of the hole

A carbide bit might do it. I've heard of that working, though never tried it myself. There's not much to lose. I've had some success with broken taps by using an acetylene torch to burn it out. If the cutting torch is too big and sloppy, you can use a regular small welding tip, heat the stuck tap/easy out until it's nice and red hot, and then crank up the oxygen. The high carbon steel in the easy out will burn more readily than the surrounding metal. So with luck, the stuck thing will fizzle and burn out, accompanied by blobs of molten stuff falling out, without doing too much damage to its surroundings. Don't try this unless you are sure that there is no part of you underneath where the molten blobs will land.

Die grinder with a small enough stone to grind the end of the easy out just enough to loosen it up.

I really like the nuclear weapons option though. :roflmao:

halvey88 said:

i already have the leaf pack out by sawzalling it and ill have to try heating it some more. wsa thinkin if i found any of that new loctite freeze n release stuff try and shrink the bolt out of the hole

Click to expand...

If you can get the spring eye completely out and get a pipe wrench around the bolt you might be able to heat it out w/o breaking the capture nut out. If that breaks loose you will have to go under the rear seat and drill a big hole to get at it with a wrench.

I really like Deep Creep from Seafoam. It may not help now, but if you spray it (I just did mine front bolts last night) through the hole in the frame and let it set for awhile, then if time permits, do it again. If that doesn't work, hit it with the flame wrench & spray. To force it, is only going to get you broken tools or knuckles.

I try to spray bolts every time I'm under the Jeep.

One of my friends cut a spot so he could access the nut, although I haven't seen what he did, it seemed like a good idea, if he wasn't getting anywhere with it.

Good luck!!

ok finally decided to just drill a small hole in the exhaust side of teh frame rail and used a punch and hammer to back out the easy out... whats the easiest and best way to get the bolt out now without damaging the threads too bad