anyone ever snap off a lug bolt. it was real tight, then it snapped. open to ideas for repair, a new rear hub assy is like 500 bucks. any help appreciated
thanks
dave

Drill a hole in the middle of what's left of the bolt and use an ease-out. Make sure you get the corresponding ease-out and drill sizes.

Good luck,

Possibly take the wheel off, break out a Dremel (if you have one) or hack saw and create a slot to accept a flat head screw driver.

Then use a impact wrench (air operated or the hand held kind) to back out the piece. I am assuming that the stud is threaded into the hub assembly?

Usually drilling out with a slightly smaller bit will get the piece to move when you are close to going all the way threw. Heat really helps here which the drilling provides.

This happened to me on a japanese car, so I don't know if it would be applicable. I simply drove the car (slowly) on the remaining functional lug nuts to the nearest Big-O tire store and they installed a new lug nut for me in 10 minutes. $2.50 for the lug bolt and nut, and $20 labor. I recommend calling your local tire store - they break lug bolts all the time. They should have ideas.-jim

In addition to all the other good tips: Before you try to get it out by any method, be sure to give it a good long soak with something like Liquid Wrench. It really helps. If you elect to go the Easy Out route (screw extractor), it also helps when you center punch the stud, before you drill, to seriously dimple that sucker. A little muscle helps in breaking it loose. If there is enough sticking out to get a Vise Grip on it, clamp it as tight as you can and hit the moveable handle side with a hammer to break it loose, not the fixed side with the adjustment screw, and again, first hit the stud with a few good hammer blows to get its attention. If you aren't confident about drilling the stud, take the thing to a machine shop as you can screw up the threads with a badly aimed drill.

The local garage that did a wheel balance and rotation tightened one of the bolts on my 87 300 sdl so tight I couldn't get it off. So I went back and they got the extra long breaking bar out and proceeded to break off the head of the bolt.

Well $200 later, the local foreign car mechanic got it off by having a machine shop make a tool that he put on the his air wrench. We were thinking for a while it was going to be major expensive, like the new axle you are talking about.

It will be interesting to see if any of the experts here have any other ideas. I know the local mechanic and I were stumped for about 4 days.

He even tried welding the head of the bolt back on but it snapped right off. I understand it is a somewhat common problem.

Good luck.

Joe

After I broke a stud, I began coating all of my wheel studs with a copper no-seize product. I have put this stuff on dozens of studs ever since and I haven't broken any. It even helps you out if a tire shop over tightens them with the impact wrench.

Whenever I get any tire work done, I specify that the torque is to be set for 85 foot-pounds and make sure they write it on the ticket. Then I drive it home and reset it myself with a torque wrench. It only takes a few minutes and then you know that you will be able to get them off next time. It also catches the ones that they have nailed on or cross threaded, while it is fresh in their minds. Anti-seize is also a good idea if/when you have the bolts out.

I think there is a special tool to deal with this problem. Check this out:

http://www.technictool.com/tst1944.htm

David

Here is how I deal with this.

#1 this takes time, it is not easy.
#2 get a thin pipe that will fit inside the hole of the wheel for protection.
#3 get the largest drill bit that will fit through the pipe and drill like crazy.

Once you drill the shoulder off, the wheel will come off with minimal damage and the stud will screw right out.

Another great tip from Donnie.

But my impression was that the top of the lug bolt was snapped off, thus allowing the wheel to come off. When I reread his post, I now see that he was not specific about that.

Good luck,

Benzmac...great post...I wondered how the pros do it. How many of these do you see...I suspect it is not all that uncommon.

Joe