I was driving my car up the street and the car funny in the rear. I took the wheels off to look to see if anything was wrong, and the bolt that holds my shock in place was snapped in half!







I don't know how to get this bolt out. I have tried using an EZ-Out, and other methods similar and nothing is working. I can't grip it well enough with pliers because the bolt is circular. I am running out of the options that I know of, so does anything have an idea of what I could do? I really don't want to strip the threads on this screw as that would be VERY bad!

Any help would be great, and I would rather do it myself and not pay MINI to do it. Would it be safe to drive it to the MINI dealership 1 mile away?

 

Drill it all the way thru to relieve the tension, if you still can't get it out, drill the whole bolt out and use a bolt and a nut.

It looks like you drilled the center for the easy out but you got it off center, so be very careful drilling out the rest, you don't want to wind up with an egg shaped hole.

You don't have to back the bolt out, if you have enough sticking out on the wheel side of the hole, just continue to wind it forward and out.

 

Is there enough room to weld on a nut and then take the whole thing out?

If not, you'll have to drill it out and buy a new bolt and nut.

 

this type of extractor grabs the outside



find the one just a bit too small and hammer it on a few whacks. if it slips give it a few more whacks

mentioned only cuz you mentioned a round end you could not get a grip on

I use these for very munged up GEN1 oil bungs . .

 

I tried drilling it out, but either the metal is much too strong in the bolt or my drill isn't powerful enough. But either way, it isn't going through. I'll try to charge it tonight and try again tomorrow morning.


Sorry, but what do you mean by "drill the whole bolt out and use a bolt and a nut"?

countryboyshane, there is a little bit sticking out but not much. I may be able to do that. Good idea.

Capt, I was thinking about this but only about 1/2 of the circle is sticking out, and I don't think I'd be able to make it "catch" enough to do any good.

 

drill the whole thing out means ( I guess ) drill increasing larger holes until you can crumble the remains out of the (receiver) hole

your bolt is going into a threaded reciver BUT it is open on both ends. So you COULD just remove the old bolt (keep drilling in larger steps until you can just break the remains) THEN replace with a bolt going THRU the receiver with a NUT on the other side.

Not what I would call opitimal, but it would work. My worry would be the slop possible as the threads in the hole wore down . . . so bore that out and and and

you have plenty of metal to let you extractor work (from what I see) ..... where did you get yours? IMO a classic case of where a GOOD tool will work and a HF tool wil fail. I like HF for many things but I buy name brand extractors cuz the just have more BITE!

 

Can you find a reverse-rotation drill bit? That can sometimes help.

Penetrating oil and heat are good. If there's any of the bolt sticking out of the hole, welding a nut on is very likely the best way to go. You get a good set of flats to crank on, and the heat can break the bond between the bolt and the hole.

 

It looks to me that you have tried to drill all the way through, but only were able to get partially through. Your progress probably stopped about the time that the drill bit overheated and dulled to the point where it did not work any longer. So you most likely pressed harder, the natural thing to do, and that just dulled the bit even more. Now, I am only guessing, but having done this myself previously, I can understand how it might happen.

The solution is to get a few drill bits that are a little smaller then what you are using right now. The first small bit, say about an 1/8 inch bit, will drill all the way through. Then switch to progressively larger bits one at a time until you approach the original threaded portion of the part that holds the bolt. At that time a small brass punch can be used carefully to try to gently knock out the remaining pieces of the bolt. But the secret to the entire process is to use some oil to lubricate the process and to keep the heat down. Take frequent breaks, and let the drill bit do the work. Only press into the metal of the bolt enough to take a little bit of metal off at a time. Check the tip of the bit often to make sure it has not been dulled so that it is not working any longer. You may need to buy several bits of the same size, especially of the first size you are using that you are trying to drill all the way through.

And finally, buy a tap that is the appropriate size and chase the threads then you are done. Whatever you have to spend in drill bits and oil should be significantly less that what you would pay a garage to do the work for you.

Let us know how it turns out!

 

Great advice here. I will try it all and let you all know. Thanks so much everyone!!!

Ace, you were dead on, haha! Also, I have a 1974 Triumph Spitfire. Glad to see someone here share similar interests besides minis!

 

You could try grinding two flat spots and getting a pair of vice grips on it. That usually works if you dont have a welder handy. I had those bolts strip out on my vehicle. Being overseas it was not easy finding helicoils or a quick solution so i ground the trailing arm flat on the wheel side and ran a grade 10 bolt through with a nylock nut. Has held up through quite a few track days and the everyday abuse my car goes through.

 

When you say you ground the trailing arm flat, do you mean you ground it down around the bolt so you could have access to it? What'd you use to grind it down?

How exactly does the nylock nut work?

 

He ground the back side of the trailing arm parallel to the front side, so he could use a nylock nut on a bolt long enough to go all the way thru and put a nut on the back side. He probably used an angle grinder, but if there's room even a good flat file would do it.

If you look carefully you'll see the surface at the back side of the hole has an angle to it...

A nylock nut has a nylon insert that keeps the nut from backing off due to vibration and movement. You can buy them at better hardwars stores like Ace or at Fastenal.

The others described what I meant by drill it out, and countryboyshane linked another thread where someone else had to do exactly that.

The most important thing is to take your time and do the job right, cause if you wind up making the hole egg shaped as I wrote before, you'll either be buying a new trailing arm or taking that one to a welder to be welded up and redrilled. A hole that's drilled too big or out of round will allow the bolt to work around and eventually will break the trailing arm - you don't want that.

If you took the car to a dealer to have it fixed, I'm betting they'd just sell you a new trailing arm, cause at $125 hr it'll cost more to get that out than it costs for the new part, and unless he does get it out without damaging the threads, he'll have to replace it anyway as a bolt and nut would not be a factory authorized repair......

Good luck!

 

noone has asked, so i will....

why did the bolt break? is this a common problem?

the shock in the picture appears to be aftermarket, who installed them?

was the bolt properly torqued or just hammered in with an airgun?

or was it not tight? that could also cause a break

i realize you have to get it repaired, but i would be concerned about the why if it were on my car

scott

 

I think the factory torque spec on that bolt is like 125 ft-lbs. I've always thought that was absolutely overkill on aluminum threads and with that diameter of bolt. Usually people wear out the threads. This is the first time I've ever seen one snap off.

 

Not sure it is common but the same bolt snapped on mine as well. Was going straight on I-15 at 75 mph and it was went. I replaced the trailing arm and bolt.

 

Did you have aftermarket shocks? How much total cost to replace both?

 

Btw, it is a 2008 MCS, about 36 days advanced track driving and heavily modded AST full racing suspension. So I thought it was the price of the track fun.

Very dangerous scenario, could have easily crashed when the bolt snapped. It was evening and sparks shot out to the front of the car from the suspension dragging on the road and it started to feel very loose.

 

I see you have 16 mm spacers. Are those in the back?

 

Yes front and rear. Would this have caused it? I don't see how.

How much did you pay total to have it replaced?

 

$1400 at the dealer. I was 2000 miles from home with very few choices. Could do it myself for less than 1/2 of that.

I tried looking for causes of the breakage. Could only postulate that the bolt backed out and snapped. The dealer blamed the AST install which was actually done by a Mini Master tech friend of mine.

 

I tried several methods this morning, all of them failing. I tried the easy out again. I tried my grab-it extractor, I tried drilling it through from smallest-smaller-bigger-biggest method, and the screw is too strong and won't let me drill through the bolt. I tried my craftsman manual impact driver which has NEVER failed me one time (working on old motorcycles, this is a god-send for broken screws) and that didn't even work. It was delivering nearly 200 ft. lb. of torque, still didn't budge. I'm going crazy! I would hate to have to replace the entire trailing arm over a stupid screw...

 

I was very lucky that evening. I told my wife that those 80 plus track days paid off big and saved two lives, hers and mine.

 

I am in the exact situation. A "friend" who was indeed a MINI Master tech who at the time worked at MINI helped install these for me. $1400! Oh my.

 

Luckily I was driving up the street and only going about 15mph.

 

Given you've exhausted your tools and skill set, I think your next move is to remove the trailing arm and take it to a machine shop, if the bolt's not removable they can carefully machine it out and either replace the threads with a helicoil or drill it oversize for a bolt or drill it oversize and resleeve it back to normal - for a bolt and nut.

Failing that, you'll need to buy a new trailing arm and factory bolt.

I think a new trailing arm is about $450, so depending on what the machine shop charges per hour, you might be better off with a new part.

Can you get at the back or outside end of the bolt and drill it from there, or is there too much stuff in the way to get the drill in there?

If you can, be sure to center punch the end and try to get it centered. Use a new drill bit for your pilot hole and enlarge it from there. I don't know why this thing is so stuck unless it was cross threaded. I've rethreaded several of these over the years by running the tap in from the back side, but only when just the first few threads were damaged, not the whole thing. However, those were all Gen1 cars, I haven't tried to do a Gen II car yet.

Good luck!