Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Remove a bolt with no head?

Alright everyone, I need a little help.
I had one of Brent's knurled chrome pillion seat bolt on my America. http://newspeedmaster.com/html/pillion_seat_bolt.html

I noticed a few days ago that it was missing and wasn't sure if some snotty teenagers had stolen it or if it had vibrated loose, but I got a replacement anyway.

I went to install it today and saw that neither of the above options was true, but that the top had sheared off and left the stem of the bolt thoroughly inserted in my fender with no easy way to get it out. I can feel a tiny bit sticking through, but it's awfully tight under there and I am pretty sure I could not get a set of vise grips in there to turn it.

Any suggestions? I think it would drive all the way through the bottom if I could figure a way to turn it.

It's a rather small bolt but if you have a steady hand you should be able to drill it out.

The threaded hole goes all the way through, so it's likely that the drill will just catch at some point and run it out the back side.

Soak it with some Liquid Wrench for several hours before you start and use a very small drill bit. I would start with nothing larger than 1/16", preferably smaller. Get it as centered as you can, this can be tough with broken bolts so use a center punch and make sure you have a very good depression punched in the bolt.
Take your time and drill straight. Gradually progress to larger bits until your in danger of hitting the threads.
If it hasn't come out yet you'll need to use an easy out.

Good luck.


P.S. If you have access to left hand bits and a reversible drill, you'll have a better chance of the drill pulling the broken bolt out.

That bolt is aluminum, should be able to carefully start a small drill bit in it and it will go on through like bigbill said. I had one of those and changed it to a hardware store hex bolt after hearing of someone else in your same predicament.

This one was a post that held the top of my Hagon Shockie. The bolt must have had a flaw in it cos I didn't over tighten it before shearing off. Phew, was I releived when it came out

Same thing happened to me. Liquid wrench, several size drills, easy-out.

Hey brent, mine was seized and i forced it but this does sound like a problem.

Hey David, I had a search for my episode of a similar situation and found the link below.

Hope this helps

Staffo
My sheard off bolt saga

There is a tool similar to an EZ-out called a Grabit. It has a drill on one end and the extractor on the other. These seem to work very well.

After doing a recent heli coil on my seat bolt hole, I've come to the over due conclusion that all the rear fender bolts require never seize.

Another never seize candidate come to mind - the alternator cover bolt just to the right of center on the bottom is a through hole that traps water. Pulled a thread a few weeks back when pulling the cover. Dissimilar metals cheese was apparent as well. As the hole was through, I didn't need to find an elusive bottoming tap, but did need to find an exotic Bike Bandit bolt.
(Where does Triumph find these oddball fasteners? Did they loot the Rolls Royce factory bolt bins? )
I bet 1/4 of the R&D budget on these bikes was the engineering and implementation of weird bolts with odd sized shoulders and rare thread pitch vs. diameters, although it has been entertaining to present these bolts to the local specialty fastener store just to see the look on their face when they see, for example, the bolts that hold the back of the airbox up.

Disclaimer - if stuff goes flyin' off ones bike due to usage of never seize, tain't my fault.

I snapped off the head of one of my sprocket cover bolts a few years ago. Those bolts are very thin. There's barely a nub sticking out of the case. I've been putting off fixing it because I'm paranoid about drilling it. I don't even know if I have an extractor that small.

In the "Better Safe than Sorry" category, I just put
anti-seize on my seat bolt.

I stopped short of doing the same to my George Foreman Grill.

We used left hand drill bits at a cabinet shop I worked at back when I was good looking (very long ago). Had a machine with a row of about 30 drill bits driven by a serpentine chain. They each turned in alternate directions.
This was the first google on the list.

I drilled and tapped the one on Nanci's bike,still hangin in there.Seems the problem is the curve on the rack behind the solo seat,not to mention the crapy quality of the bolt.