Hey everyone, My car is off the road... AGAIN! Something so straight forward and so simple has turned into a massive drama! I was replacing the vacuum modulator on my transmission last night and all was going swimmingly... a little too well it would appear. I removed the old one, didn't loose much fluid - caught what did come out though. I then put the new one in place - checked the hose would mate up nice an tight - sweet, so far no problems and all done in time for dinner i thought... Now for the fun stuff - I was in the process of tightening the bolt on the bracket that holds the modulator on to the correct torque setting - when all of a sudden the F$#&EN thing let go, off snapped the top of the bolt and the rest of it is left stuck in my trans!!! Sooo not happy!! That was all well and good - i swore a little and then went to get the drill... problem was there was no where near enough room to get a drill up in there - so i then grabbed the air drill... unfortunately that was a little to big also! After some ringing around and some swearing i located a mate who's work had a right angle air drill - fantastic i thought and then left it until today. Today i got the drill, got an exhaust pipe cutter and went home at lunchtime to crack into the job at hand. I tried to drill the pilot hole for the easy out with the exhaust in place but it was too hard to get the right angle. I then cut the exhaust and removed a section of pipe - now i had easy access - however the hole i had already started was slightly off centre... i continued drilling the pilot hole and then inserted the easy out - it was winding in really smooth and then all of a sudden - you guessed it... the F&#$EN easy out snapped off also... Surely someone else has had a piss poor experience with an easy out or similar - Any ideas what i can do now? Does anyone know if the various toughened drill bits will drill it out? Please... anyone that has had a similar experience or knows anything about how to fix this please leave your comments... Thanks all, Jason

I've had a few easy outs do that to me.. but never in such a tight position. I feel your pain but I don't know how to help.

Enough room to mig a nut on ? Or drill a offset hole & tap it around with a punch.

yeah my suggustion would be either get a welder and tack a bolt on or build up the end of the snapped off nut with wels then use vice grips or something to get it off,hope this helps Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

Ive had one easy out go on me, sodding things are harder than any drill bit known to man.

trying not to laugh as im thinking what a mean april fool joke!!but seriously i had that on vl exhaust studs,5 out of 12 where sheared off,can you leave it in there and drill and tap new thread near it to hold modulator on?

Quote: Originally Posted by calais3L Ive had one easy out go on me, sodding things are harder than any drill bit known to man. Haha, yeah! "Bugger.. I'll try again.. ah ****" I'd go for drilling an offset hole and trying to tap it around, get the weld wrong and your problems may get worse.

Quote: Originally Posted by Irontusk Haha, yeah! "Bugger.. I'll try again.. ah ****" I'd go for drilling an offset hole and trying to tap it around, get the weld wrong and your problems may get worse. pop out your tranny mounts and the box will tilt down on engine mounts easy access, and pull your easy out that snapped out and put another in is the box even leaking with a single nut in there most things going into the box are seal with an O-ring anyways

Thanks so much for all the replies everyone... But i am well glad to say it is now out! I used some special drill bit to start drilling into the snapped easy out and it loosened the bolt - after blowing at it with an air gun i we managed to tap it round with a centre punch and then it unscrewed! So strange it broke though - it wasn't even very tight in the hole... Oh well... SOOOOO FARKEN HAPPY RIGHT NOW!!! Thanks again everyone... Jason

good to hear it had a happy ending.

Never use an easy out. Use a reverse drill bits,Once you start drilling(becouse these drill in reverse) they help wind out the broken bolt.I have never had a problem once I went to these. By the way, good on you for getting it out.

congrats on getting it sorted out. on the subject of shearing/ snapping bolts, does anyone know much about replacing the bleeder bolts on the plenum etc? mine look pretty fragile and dont want them snapping?

get a new/old plenum

Quote: Originally Posted by ss nut Never use an easy out. Use a reverse drill bits,Once you start drilling(becouse these drill in reverse) they help wind out the broken bolt.I have never had a problem once I went to these. By the way, good on you for getting it out. Yea... Next time i think i will get a reverse dill bit - easy outs are great when they work but unfortunately they seem to be more trouble than they're worth a lot of the time... The problem i had was the limited space i was working in... I couldn't get a drill in there properly - i tried an air drill but even that was too big... eventually i located that right angle air drill and used that... problem was it didn't have a reverse function... I'm just glad it's all over... although the trans still seems to be leaking!! Cheers, J