Help! Bolt broke and need to remove it today!

[RedManE30]

So a bolt on the knuckle of my drivers side strut assembly broke, now its stuck and won't budge. I need to remove it today as I'm getting my coilovers welded on tomorrow morning. Any ideas? Ive been spraying it with some liquid wrench but its in there tight..

[That_E30]

Impact drill? Sears sells a craftsman electric one for 150 with a 300 or so lb of torque. I had the same problem with a axle nut. Broke 2 1/2 breaker bars. Drill did the deed

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[Pdxseth]

Easy outs

[e30austin]

Heat and vice grips. Do it.

[RedManE30]

Heat and vice grips. Do it.

Exactly what i ended up doing, went out and bought a decent torch and heated it up till it was glowing, came out like butter with the help of vice grips.

Thanks all for the input! Saved me a lot of stress and got me that much closer to lowering my E34!

[e30austin]

Exactly what i ended up doing, went out and bought a decent torch and heated it up till it was glowing, came out like butter with the help of vice grips.

Thanks all for the input! Saved me a lot of stress and got me that much closer to lowering my E34!

Never underestimate the power of heat. Glad you figured it out.

[delamaize]

Fire good.
Broke bolts bad.

[gasgasrider]

It usually takes an amazingly small amount of heat to defeat the rust holding it in… The reason why red hot is not a good idea is because you have now pretty effectively hardened the steel, thereby making it that much more difficult to drill, if that turns out to be necessary. The best penetrating oil I have found is Kroil, heat the broken part, a little, cool it with your chemical of choice, and remove with whatever works best. I've done this a time or two...

[Curt Hayes]

It usually takes an amazingly small amount of heat to defeat the rust holding it in… The reason why red hot is not a good idea is because you have now pretty effectively hardened the steel, thereby making it that much more difficult to drill, if that turns out to be necessary. The best penetrating oil I have found is Kroil, heat the broken part, a little, cool it with your chemical of choice, and remove with whatever works best. I've done this a time or two...

Not to be anal, but if you heat the steel to red hot it typically anneals it, not hardens it. Few steels will harden in air cooling. Annealing makes it soft, which is why you want to avoid that. You've just lost the strength that it had.