Valve cover bolt guidance

Went to change the valve cover gaskets today and broke 2 heads off with almost next to no effort on the back bottom of passenger side. Most of my searching showed bolts broken flush. Perhaps I’m a little more blessed as there’s about an inch or so sticking out still…..for now. Currently I’m just going to keep soaking them with penetrating fluid but I wondered how you guys would tackle these. I thought dremel notch and flat head and I also wondered if maybe I could threat and epoxy a nut on there. Putting heat on it feels like a fire disaster waiting to happen.

 

Vice grips?

 

Low torque impact wrench (for the good bolts).

 

Weld a nut on and then let coo, if you have the ability to weld.

 

I do own a small little welder. I definitely lack experience.

 

It’s hard to say without putting eyes on it but I’d try putting some heat on it with a bottle of map gas and then trying some vice grips on it. You may be able to turn the flame down a little and put it directly onto the bolt. Yes, I’d be concerned about a fire also but if you are careful you may be able to pull it off. I believe you can buy some flame resistant cloth at Harbor Freight to help you cover some of the exposed areas. Good luck on the repair.

 

This one all day long. If it snaps pull out the extractor set.

 

If it's any consolation at all, it does look nice and clean in there.

 

I was very happy to see how clean it looked. 227,000 on it.

 

Adjust vise grips as tight as you can to that bolt, slowly back and forth a 1/16th “ at a time….CW CCW CW CCW

 

Vice grips and welding didn’t work. Now it’s time to drill or tow to mechanic which I’m sure I’ll pay a premium for this one.

 

Describe how they failed

 

I couldn’t get a good bite with the vice grips and I welded on 4-5 different nuts and they just kept taking more and more bolt with it(breaking each time). There’s enough of a nub left to maybe get 1 more welded attempt. Lots of heat prior and generous amounts of penetrating fluid applied multiple times and left for 12-14 hours

 

I’d just drill em. Cut the shank stub flush (not flush to the head, flush on top). Center punch the head. Small bit to pilot the hole. Then step up a couple sizes at a time until the hole is near the threads. Then reverse flute EZOUT to pull the shank.

 

Man, that’s tuff spot. If you have drill them out, cover the open engine. Use grease to catch the cutting chips from drilling. Ez out those bolts. Ya may be past cut notches or weld on fastener. This is where I’d be envious of those induction heater coils. Best to ya

 

I actually purchased an induction heater that will get delivered later today.

 

Let us know how that works out.

 

This ^^^

I'm really curious to see how it fares for you.

 

1. DO NOT WELD ON IT with the cams exposed, cover them thoroughly

2. Try an extractor set first, they're sockets meant to grab onto the stud and work it out, go slow and heat the head where the bolts thread into, penetrant is good (use the good stuff like Free All)

 

Yea I figured when I got right down to it I was done welding. I did cover everything accordingly every weld attempt though. I might go buy a right angle drill to get to that back bolt easier. I’ve got 18 of the wrong tool for the job I feel. I do have extractors luckily and hopefully these Milwaukee drill bits don’t fail me.

 

There’s about a 1/4 inch of bolt left sticking out on one and the furthest bolt to the back hasn’t bent messed with much yet so that’s all there still.

 

This whole experience has been rather unfortunate. After to failing to remove the furthest back valve cover bolt I took it to my local shop. They were able to drill into it and then the extractor broke off inside of the drilled bolt. They no longer want to mess with it in fear of snapping that ear portion of the engine off. So now maybe I put a small clamp on it on hope for the best.

 

If they snapped off an extractor, it's because they don't know how to use an extraction kit. You drill out the fastener until you're practically down to threads-only, then use the extractor. That usually means drilling a pilot hole in the center, then widening the hole until you've got 1mm of shank left before you start cutting into threads on the head. Typically, the heat of drilling will often break the iron-to-alloy bond that causes the fasteners to become stuck in the first place.

Sadly, they've left you supremely fucked, because extractors are hardened steel, so by them failing to use the extractor set correctly, they've left you with nearly no options. There are some options, but they're probably more-limited now. Pics would help. I'd probably try to drill little holes along side of the extractor to extract the extractor, then drill it out properly. It's not rocket science, I'm guessing they just fucked up.

I sure as hell hope they didn't charge you any $$$ to fuck up your truck like that, doing an improper extraction.

Sadly, both that snapped are on the manifold side (low side) of the valve cover. Oil is likely to leak.

 

This might be dumb response but, since you mentioned to just maybe clamp down that area: is it possible to put a bolt on and a nut underneath if you just drilled through the hole and you have no threads left after the process? I'm sorry if it sounds dumb or won't even work, but I have no idea.

 

First, pics would help. Can you get us up-close pics of each remaining bolt shank?

For clarification, which shank did they snap the extractor on? I've labeled both of your snapped shanks here with "A" and "B".

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I’m guessing because I am the reason the bolt snapped they are just trying to protect themselves at this point. Since I originally made this thread I was able to extract 1 of the bolts luckily. So the only one now is the furthest bottom bolt. When I put it back to gather to get it to the shop I drove it around a bit. At that particular time nothing was leaking but 20-30mins of driving might not have much impact in that dept.

Maybe I’ll get somewhat lucky on my day to day but I’m sure that will leak to some extent. I’m sure if I took it to Toyota they wouldn’t touch it at this point. Getting any drill bit back there feels hard enough as it is.

 

Also in response to the above pic “a” is where the extractor is stuck. I was able to get “b” out luckily with some slow and steady drilling and a little tap on the edge of the screw.

when the shop got my truck I had tried vice grips one more time on “a” which snapped the bolt flush unfortunately. I should have just let it be but after getting bolt “b” out I was feeling a little more confident about everything

 

Right, but the correct thing to do would be to pay for a machine shop to fix the problem they created. It'd be one thing if they didn't leave you with a hardened steel extractor stuck in your head. But they've basically left you worse off than they did before, and that's not OK, it's not a way to run a business.

Toyota would likely want to replace the head entirely.

You really need a right angle drill/driver to get into that spot. I'd still love to see pics of the current situation.

Unfortunately? That's exactly what you want. I typically snap the shank off flush to the hole before I get started. Even if you were to drill off-center and eat into the threads at one point, as long as threads are available on 50% of the hole, you're golden. And there are misc fillers you can use to help recreate the threads.

Don't kick yourself. Let's be real: You'd be in no-better or no-worse a situation than you are today.

But seriously, there's a solid chance for recovery here. I've snapped off extractors before, and managed to back them out again. I suspect the shop put the newbie or something on the case, and whoever was doing the job didn't know what the hell they were doing.

 

I appreciate all of that. I guess once I get the truck back I’ll see what I can do. I still need the drivers side gaskets done and it’s just so off putting now haha.

 

Don't lose hope. None of us ever want curve balls. Fortunately, there's likely a recovery option here. Just may take a little more work, and buying an inexpensive tool or two, which ... who doesn't want another tool or two?