Idle Jet Issue

My father-in-law and I adjusted the valves on the 1978 1000LTD that he is going to give me. Soon after that I had the carbs off and was blowing out the main and idle jets. When I took one of the idle jets out the whole jet did not come out. It had broken, or was already broken, off just past the threads. I don't know what the section that has the tiny holes is called, but that is what is still stuck in the body of the carb. It has been impossible to come out. We were able to still blow compressed air through the hole on the intake of the carb, so it's not blocking air flow. We put it back together and it idles and runs fine. I was just wondering if anyone has had this happen to them, and how they finally got the remainder of the broken jet out. Is it possible to carefully drill it out?

Use a reverse cut drill bit that's not going to dig into the threads for the idle jet. That's your best bet to extract the broken off piece. The reverse cut has the potential to act like a screw extractor and get the offending piece to back out of the threads without having to drill it all out. Whatever you do, make sure you don't screw up those thread or you'll have a hell of time ever getting a pilot jet back in that carb body.

Would a regualar drill bit not work, because the portion that is broken off is beyond the threads?

wow... sounds like quite a pickle....
if it idles and runs fine my suggestion would be to leave it. Don't worry about it until you have to or else you could screw up those threads like Anarki is talking about. That's a very small hole with very small threads and I, for one, wouldn't trust my hand in drilling it out.
that's just my two cents.

I'm not too concerned about it right now. I'm just digging for ideas. Another thought I had was to use the pilot jet portion that came out, and use it as a guide to get the stubborn brass out, without messing up the threads. The circled area is the portion that is broken off in the carb body.