mk20rockeye said:
just go to the tool store and get yuorself an easy out kit. the few bucks spent will be wirth it. kit usually contains a few regular drill bits and a few reverse thread bits used with a wrench or socket or what ever works for you. they are very easy to use and take the work out of it. they have saved me numerous times on aircraft and my jeep
AHHH! NO NO NO!
Gawd, if you had any idea how many times I've had to burn out an EZ-Out because someone else managed to break the thing (which is Hellishly easy to do...) you'd understand why I'm saying that.
Go get a left-hand drill bit - 1/8" or 3/16". Work CAREFULLY so you don't snap the bit, soak the screw in PB Blaster, and maybe heat up the yoke years (which will enlarge the hole slightly.)
It should
always be borne in mind that in order to make steel hard enough for tools like EZ-outs, it will get incredibly brittle as well. The harder it is, the more brittle it is. The "cheap" easy outs don't have as much process control on the heat treatment as they should, and end up being too hard (I think I'd checked a few cheapie toolbits at about 70HRC -
way too hard to be truly useful! In comparison, a quality penknife blade should be 40-50HRC.)
The catch is, if you break the EZ-out, it's harder than most drill bits, so you're not going to drill it out easily (if at all.) I usually remove broken EZ-outs and broken taps using fire, rather than tools.
If you can't get a left-hand drill bit in the size you need, find a #10-32 or #10-24 tap for a left-hand thread, get a tap drill for it, and use that. You should be able to drill out a pilot hole for the tap, tap a few threads' worth, and if the tap doesn't bite the thing and turn it quickly, go ahead and hit the bottom of the hole and work carefully (so you don't break the tap, which is only slightly harder than the drill bit, and has flutes that can be grabbed.)
5-90