Broken bolt stuck in Boler hinge

[bomni]

I have a bolt that is broken in the hinge.....it gets a little more complicated, one side I drilled a pilot hole for an easy out but that has broke off in the pilot hole. So then I tried drilling out the bolt from the other side. This started off well as I slowly increased drill bit size but then one drill bit broke off inside the bolt. I tried drilling out the broken bit in a drill press but I keep breaking bits off. I try not to push to hard but as I increase the pressure it breaks. I have gone a few bits and now am not sure what to do....

It is one hinge and the part that mounts the door to the shell if that helps.... I am very frustrated and need some suggestions please!

Thanks

Matt

[John_M]

I don't think that you will ever be able to drill out either that ez out, or drill bit. They're just too hard. Thats been my experience anyway. I'm sure if someone else out there knows how to, they will chime in. BUT... I have read that others replaced the boler hinges with scamp hinges. You could order some from them...

Outside Door Hinges

Cheap too!

[Thomas G.]

Ouch. I broke off a drill bit in steel and was able to drill it out using a carbide concrete drill. It was an ugly wobbly hole, but it did drill out the steel drill.

[John_M]

Originally Posted by Thomas G.

Ouch. I broke off a drill bit in steel and was able to drill it out using a carbide concrete drill. It was an ugly wobbly hole, but it did drill out the steel drill.

ohhhh.... that was a good idea!

[Doug Arthurs]

The tip of one of your broken drills is stuck in there. Whenever the new bit hits it it will jam and break as well. Also once you drill through to the ezy-out it will be to hard to drill through. I almost never use easy outs for this reason. Normally I will drill it out with a left hand drill bit and often the bolt will turn out with the bit. Of course this is assuming the bolt sheared of and isn't corroded in there. Heat will also help big time. If you can heat the bolt up then turn it. Of course none of this helps your current dilemma. Don't the hinge bolts just pass through the hinge and are held on with a nut and the spring? If so I would heat the bolt with a torch and use a hammer and pin punch to pound it out.

[Doug Arthurs]

Just thought of some else. If you have a little dental pick you can try to clean drill tip out so you can continue drilling or get a dremel tool and a carbide burr and grind away at the bolt and easy out.

[Raz]

Originally Posted by Doug Arthurs

Just thought of some else. If you have a little dental pick you can try to clean drill tip out so you can continue drilling or get a dremel tool and a carbide burr and grind away at the bolt and easy out.

To add to Doug's thought, grind on the sides and grab the broken pieces with a pair of vice grips. They make a small needle nose pair that are good for that. We've all been there. Raz

[Thomas G.]

One other trick if you have an arc welder is to put a large rod on the broken drill and flick the switch on and off quickly so it just arcs on to the drill, then use the welding rod like a wrench.

I guess if you were brave, you could use a big battery.

[mary and bob]

Blow out the hole with air to remove chips, use penetrating oil to loosen things up, use a small prick punch or pin punch to break up the broken bit, that's a few ideas. Of course it depends how deep in the hole the broken pieces are. There is some tool that uses an arc, or laser, or water jet, I can't remember what, to remove broken bolts. You would have to find a fabrication shop or machine shop that has one. Now for broken taps, there are tap removers, but it's not an easy job. Bob

[Roger C H]

You could use a hole saw, with a pin instead of the pilot drill that doesn't enter the cup of the hole saw, cut the whole mess out and then plug the hole with epoxy, with a long, or T-nut of the correct size nut inserted or not...

I don't quite understand the situation. Is the bolt still attached to the metal hinge or are we looking at the bolt, ezout, drill, etc all stuck in the fiberglass?

If still attached to the hinge, then maybe you can find a machine shop nearby that has an EDM machine. Hmm. I don't know if EDM works without being submerged in a medium or not...am investigating

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[bomni]

Thanks for all the ideas.. I can not just punch it through as the hinge hole is threaded. I can not use vise grips or anything grip the bolt as it broke off almost flush on one side and the other side had some surface but after using vise grips and filing 2 sides flat eventually not enough material was left so I used a dremel to cut the remaining bolt material off which lead me to attempting to drill out the bolt.


I like the idea of using a welder perhaps build up the bolt material so that I can get a good grip and turn it out but the Boler hinges are made of aluminium





Thanks

Matt

[RogerDat]

Can you use a dremal and small cut off wheel to cut a slot for a screw driver?

I have gotten some pretty stuck bolts using this approach. Propane torch to heat bolt, quench with WD40 or Breakaway (be damn sure your torch is off when you quench, fumes will ignite) repeat. The heat expands and quenching causes contraction sort of breaks it all loose, plus penatrating oil follows the heat in when quenched.

Then use hand impact screw driver on the cut slot. The kind you drive with a hammer, keeps the bit from popping out. Be a little gentle, cast aluminum breaks pretty easy.

That does look an awful lot like a scamp hinge. But I have no idea of how well they line up. Bet someone does on this forum.

http://shop.scamptrailers.com/p-331-pair-of-outside-door-hinges.aspx

EZ Out will always break if the tip hits the bottom of the hole.

[Raz]

Yea, that's ugly. I like Rogerdat's WD40 tip. I have never heard of that.

I think you said the hinge is aluminum( on my trillium they are zinc). It's been a long time since I thought about such things but I believe the coefficient of expansion of aluminum is greater than steel, so heat alone could loosen things up. You could drill a small hole with a no. 60 drill bit on one side just deep enough to provide a place to tap with a nail set in a circular direction, unthreading the bolt. Try working the bolt out from the bottom. Heat. Then tap. Heat. Then tap. Raz

[Thomas G.]

Originally Posted by P. Raz

Yea, that's ugly. I like Rogerdat's WD40 tip. I have never heard of that.

I think you said the hinge is aluminum( on my trillium they are zinc). It's been a long time since I thought about such things but I believe the coefficient of expansion of aluminum is greater than steel, so heat alone could loosen things up. You could drill a small hole with a no. 60 drill bit on one side just deep enough to provide a place to tap with a nail set in a circular direction, unthreading the bolt. Try working the bolt out from the bottom. Heat. Then tap. Heat. Then tap. Raz

+1 - I've used this technique before successfully.

[bomni]

Great...i will try the torch thing and see if that works. I'm assuming they are aluminum but not sure, they look like aluminum but could be zinc.

[Greg H]

Trow the SOB away and buy new ones from Scamp.

[Doug Arthurs]

Know anyone who can weld? Now that I see it the solution is to weld a nut on the bolt. The heat from the migwelder will cause the bolt to expand then contract as it cools. This will sort of crush the rust and such and when its cool you can turn it out with the nut. Liberal amounts of penetrating oil will help. If that fails then carefully dremel it out to the threads then pick the remaining bolt out of the threads.

[bomni]

My Dad and my Grandpa are both welders. I will try to get my Dad to weld the hinge on Saturday.

As for scamp hinges that will be a last resort as I am not keen on trying to align the new hinges and drilling the extra holes.

Thanks

Matt

[Roger C H]

Thanks for the picture, it helps a lot!

That is small enough to fit into an EDM machine, and can be submerged in the medium.

Be careful with heat. You could change the structural character of the hinge material or worse, melt it.

Zinc melts at 780ºF, Aluminum 1220ºF. A propane torch flame is about 3200ºF' acetylene/oxygen is 6300ºF!

Maybe your Dad knows someone who does EDM.