96 GP rear shock/strut HELP!

[alacran]

This forum has helped me plenty with the engine i figured lets see how we do with suspension...

I got the rear strut out but one of the top bolts broke and stayed in the body. No corrosion that i can see the head of the bolt broke clean off.

Anyone deal with this before? What is the best course of action to take here?

TIA

[pocket-rocket]

I would try a a screw extractor kit with a little heat around the hole. If that doesn't work I would use the other two bolts (at least I think 96 had the 3 bolt upper mount) and the bare upper strut mount as a guide to drill the broken bolt out and retap the hole. Since it was seized into body enough to break it's hard to say which of the two ways I mentioned are going to work for you, but I hope it's the first one.

[alacran]

it is the 2-bolt mount.

We plan on drilling the screw out. Hopefully we get the pilot hole correct... the heat generated from the drilling should be effective.

[alacran]

update. bolt was drilled through but we ran out of drill bits that were the right size. planning on stepping up to 8.5mm or 11/32" drill size dpnding on what is available. I have tap and new bolt on stand by. Also, planning on putting a nut to make sure the new bolt does not back out.

[pocket-rocket]

Good call on the nut. A dab of blue locktite (service removable) wouldn't be a bad idea either.

[alacran]

well, after drilling and tapping to M10x1.5, broken bit and broken tap, we were able to snug the bolt up (not torqued) and tightened the nut on the other side of it. We a nut with a nylon insert and blue threadlocker. Car is back together now.

The extracters i used were junk, perhaps if i had good stuff i would have been able to pull the bolt out and not have to tap at all.

Overall it was very ugly but done well in the end and we were able to retain the same size bolt.

[AWeb80]

you could have thrown a M10x1.5 nut on top of the bolt in the trunk and tack welded it and then wrenched it out.....