easy outs! to use or !!

I either have lots of time on my hands and little cash to spend or reverse and at the moment business's wise! Earnings are up, that is for now anyway. At present I'm working on the undertray (tail tidy) which is coming along great! But as normal I'm slow in posting updates and though this update isn't about tail tidy, it is about the difficulty of removing two broken hexagon key type bolts that secure the brake disc to the rear wheel, The question I kept asking myself! Was? Should I use "Easy-outs" or just drill them out?     

I soon realize that with "just" drilling the stud (the hexagon key type bolts) out the problem would be in finding the centre of the studs and keeping the drill bit as straight as possible while drilling through without wiping out the threads, as there's little margin for error! Which is why I took the Easy-outs option as I wouldn't need to be as precise with this option-But drilling the studs out would be the way I'll finally win in the end.

The reasons why I didn't go with the totally-drill-out option' that is the first time around, Was' one- Using a handheld drill was a no-no and the other my Clarke floor drill press isn't the most precise drill press around. 

I still needed to drilled holes for the Easy-outs so I came up with the idea of taking one of the broken-off stud heads and drill a small pilot hole in the centre and 
then reseating drilled head
back over each broken stud and in turn drilled a pilot hole 
in each stud and then enlarged them bit by bit until I had a hole larger enough to fit Easy-out into.   



Before inserted the Easy-out I heated up the stud and then tried to turn the stud with the Easy-out, but it wouldn't budge, so little bit more pressure-bit more-bit-more? As I'm thinking how much more will the Easy-out take before snapping-off! Then the Easy-out sheared off.  

 




I first tried to drilling the "Easy-out" out, but failed miserably, it seems none of my drill bits I had would touch the broken "Easy-out" not even a set of cobalt bits as the "Easy-out" are made out of hardened steel. The only thing that seems to work was a Dremel tungsten carbide cutter bits, so ever so slowly I grinded bit by bit cut through the broken Easy-out, which took few hours to carry out. Once I had grinded the Easy-out-out, I still had two studs to get out. The only way I could now see that had any chance in working is to drill them out after all, and as I didn't want to throw any more money at the problem and I wasn't about to retry an Easy-outs option again. If it doesn't work, I'll have the largest paper weight around. 

When drilling the first stud the drill grabbed the stud and out it came with the drill bit, but I wasn't so luckily with the second stud, drilling until I just touching the threads? I wasn't 100% sure, that I hadn't wiped the threads out at this point!  I tried to use a very small cold chisel to collapse the remaining stud inwards and out, but it was different to tell where the thread and remaining stud started or finish and the hole-size didn't help either. So I finally finished off with a tap sizes M8x1.25 to cleanup the thread and hopefully removed the remaining parts of last stud, slowly may I add! As I do not want to break a tap at this stage, so careful half a turn-in and back-out again and so on. Once in a while removing the tap and clean-out the threads as I go, as bits of broken stud can jam the tap, eventually I managed to clean the thread right through. Fitting a fairly-good! hexagon key bolt into the newly cleaned thread and everything seems to work well, so clean the other thread out with the tap and then fitted the old brake disc and tighten down the only two hexagon key bolts I have left which seems to be holding  
brake disc down very well, but I don't want to torque them fully down yet, 
that is too, I have a new set of hexagon key bolts, as I don't want 
to go through that again in a hurry.

I learnt the hard way that unless the stud/bolt isn't seized in? Then perhaps I'll use an Easy-out, but other while I wouldn't. Drilling them out wasn't so bad after all, though I could do with a better drill press next time.

Most of the clips you see on youtube are removing a broken stud/bolt that haven't been in for more than five minutes and therefore are offering non resistant to being removed.  

Using Easy-out could cause more trouble then there are worth and remember there are made out of  hardened steel which I found makes them undrillable.    

Spiral fluted type extractors which have a coarse-pitched tapered screw thread. Which are left-handed, for use on right-handed threads.The drawback to tapered screw extractors is that their wedge action tends to expand the drilled stud and thus wedges the stud even more tightly in place to the point of making it difficult, if not impossible to extract the stud.

The Straight fluted extractors, which I didn't come across when I was looking! comes in a kit? That also has associated drills, drill bushings, and special nuts.The stud is drilled out with the appropriate drill and drill bushing. The extractor is then hammered into the hole with a brass hammer, because a steel hammer will cause the extractor to break.
The tools are made of very hard, brittle steel; they can break off inside the screw if too much torque is applied, making the removal much more difficult.
Straight fluted extractors have less wedging effect than tapered screw extractors, so have less tendency to lock the stud into place. 
A further form is a parallel fluted extractor, with no taper at all and thus no wedging. These work well, but have the drawback of requiring the pilot hole to be drilled to a precise size. This size is often nonstandard for most drill sets, requiring a dedicated drill bit to be supplied with the kit.

Left-hand drill bits! I did come across these sets online but when I click on them I could make out for sure that they were left-hand drill bits and not just normal drill sets' that is here in the UK.  

I hear "Snap-On" do some good extractors set, doseone' still gets guarantee money-back or tool replaced? These days when you break a tool! But then "Snap-On" has never been a cheap tool to buy anyway.

One thing I need to do is buy some of the unusual drill sizes that are required when taping new threads.