Ummm... Guess I have super strength... Whoops!

In the process of doing some repairs I decided it would be easier to just take the exhaust off to get to the oil pan bolts easier. That was a great idea, until I snapped an exhaust stud. Decided to go ahead and put helicoils in since the studs felt rather loose. After getting all the holes drilled out, and re-tapped I kinda sorta screwed up. Some how (after putting a bolt on to keep from "over tapping") I still ended up trying to tap the solid aluminum in the bottom of the hole. Pulled the motor, and have managed to finish everything but the top hole on #4. Have tried to weld nut to tap, use drill press, hand drill, and even melt out the tap with no luck. I already have a nice "sleeve" from the broken clutch. It is the same size and thread pattern as the rest of the stud holes. Can I just cut the existing hole all the way off with a cut-off wheel and dremel and get someone to weld the new sleeve in? or do I need to keep snapping bits trying to drill it out???

Ok..this post is confusing.You broke off a tap in an exhaust stud hole and you are trying to get it out....I got that part.I have no idea what the clutch sleeve and the "cut off the nut" have to do with it. But....trying to drill out a broken tap isn't possible. Taps are way harder than drill bits.Either you will break the bit or end up drilling out more aluminumm before you even scratch a tap.Best thing to do now is take the head to a machine shop and see if they can fix it.

Take it to a machinist and pray they can repair correctly...

if any of the tap is sticking out of the put a bit bigger nut overr the top of it and then weld the nut to the tap it should come out fairly easy then.turn it back out just like a bolt

Go to this website, they have a page that deals with removing broken taps. I used to work in a machine shop and we used a method that used an electrode to burn out the taps. You may find a full service machine shop that has the machine to do this. It will save your part.

www.americanmachinist.com/304/rss/Article/False/83882/

if you can somehow get a hole bored into the tap the end of of a chainsaw file where handle normally goes can sometimes be used as an easy out

txturbo wrote:

Ok..this post is confusing.You broke off a tap in an exhaust stud hole and you are trying to get it out....I got that part.I have no idea what the clutch sleeve and the "cut off the nut" have to do with it. But....trying to drill out a broken tap isn't possible. Taps are way harder than drill bits.Either you will break the bit or end up drilling out more aluminumm before you even scratch a tap.Best thing to do now is take the head to a machine shop and see if they can fix it.

Sorry, was a little tired when writing this. This whole project started to change the starter clutch. In the process I broke a female end of one of the fingers on the clutch hub. This is where the extra part is from. I called it a sleeve because I didnt know a better way to describe it.

I will try the welding trick again. When I tried this with the exhaust stud, I couldnt get a good bead. Using a 110 mig. Probably didnt find that sweet spot with wire speed and voltage. I was getting great welds on the nut, but couldnt get very good bead on the stud. What would the ideal heat and wire speed be to get good bead on the TAP?

No help on the welding & this might not matter now, but you might've been able to install 8mm studs (the stock exhaust studs are 6mm).

If possible submit a picture of the broken tap. We might be able to give you a better solution.

JMKZHI wrote:

No help on the welding & this might not matter now, but you might've been able to install 8mm studs (the stock exhaust studs are 6mm).

that was what i planned on doing, and that would be where the broken tap came from. I will work on getting a pic up when I get home. Without having a pic I can explain that the original hole is now bored out and makes an inward cone to the motor. The small end is on the motor side, and the larger side is on the exhaust side. There is some melted aluminum around it from the fouled attempt with the hot wrench.