There I was, putting new rotors/front brakes on Ye Olde 99 Outback Sport! The drivers side went slicker than snot. All was going well on the passenger side until I got to the LAST bolt! (why is it always the last bolt?) It's the bolt that holds the part of the brake assembly to the 'wheel.' Try as I might, I could not get that bolt to budge. Lubed it all up with Liquid Wrench, let it sit and tried a electric impact wrench on it, to no avail. Got out a longer 1/2 " drive socket wrench and put in on the impact socket, put a piece of pipe over the wrench and using my almost Superman like strength, I got it to move! I says: "Aha!" I pulled on it to turn it some more,,,,, and the bolt twisted off.

 

A friend of mine had suggested putting some heat to it first, but I didn't! (Live and learn)

 

So now I'm looking at using an 'EZ out' to get that bolt out. It has to come out in order to get the old rotor off the wheel.

 

Any suggestions, hints or whatever on making this job a little easier? What is the size of that bolt anyway?

 

Thanks,

UMT

Why you are working on your car now or yesterday is beyond me. I dont know about the easy out but i will say something about the heat. It has saved my butt on more then 1 occasion. Even if you just have a butane torch it is more then enough. I will spending some of my christmas money on a new torch to help out on occasion.

 

There are some pepole who drill out the center of the bolt then go from there. Cobalt or Carbide are good bits to go with and use tapping or drilling oil.

If you have enough of a stud for the ez out to grab, do it. You'll be able to apply more pressure than with a broken stud extractor.

PB and heat surrounding area.

 

O.

Last time I just bought new(used) caliper brackets.

 

Since that's what the bolts had broken off in.

 

The good news was that if I had wanted to mess with these atleast they weren't on the car and the work could heve been done in a vise.

 

Perhaps we're not talking about the same thing though.

Did you break the smaller bolt that goes into the caliper or the bigger bolt that holds the caliper bracket to the knuckle?

 

If it's the big bolt that holds the bracket, then it goes through a clearance hole in the knuckle and threads into the caliper bracket. If you snapped it off, you should be able to pull the caliper and rotor off at the same time and then pull the bracket off the rotor once it's off the hub.

 

Then heat the hell out of the stub of the bolt sticking out with the bracket held in a vice, then use vice-grips to twist out the broken bolt.

 

If that doesn't work, get a replacement caliper bracket.

Why you are working on your car now or yesterday is beyond me.

 

Uh, it was yesterday and the first day I've had a chance to work on it in 2 weeks. Normally, I can change out a brake and rotor in an hour or less.

 

C'mon, Dude.

 

 

Thanks,

UMT

 

If it's the big bolt that holds the bracket, then it goes through a clearance hole in the knuckle and threads into the caliper bracket.

 

It's the big bolt. It snapped off about 1/4" into the hole.

 

Thanks for all the tips on using heat. Guess I learned a lesson the hard way.

 

UMT

It's the big bolt. It snapped off about 1/4" into the hole.

 

Thanks for all the tips on using heat. Guess I learned a lesson the hard way.

 

UMT

 

So the bracket is off there you can work on it then?

 

Like I said now I keep a set of these around from cars I scrap. I bought 2 used for a very reasonable price at the time from a local JY I deal with very often.

 

If you get desperate to know about the bolt I have a new one of two in the upper garage but I have little clue where. But they would still be in the Subaru bag and have the item# on it.

I had something similar happen. If I had to do it again, I'd just start off with replacing the darn part. Ended up I spent crap tons of time getting the bolt free, easy outs are not easy. I had to repair the threads with a Helicoil. Next time I was in there it backed out and I ended up having to replace the part anyhow. (rear diff mount)

 

I think in a corrosion area the different metals between the Helicoil and the part and bolt causes corrosion. I've used them under the hood but on brake or suspension part, I don't know...

 

Hope you get the stud out and don't need to put in Helicoil.

If you remove the rotor you should see the end of the bolt. Drill first with 1/8" dead center, then 1/4". The rotation of the drill will tend to twist the bolt in an unscrew-wise direction. It will prolly undo itself. If you get slighly offcenter, and nick the threads, it will come out even easier.

 

Ezyouts hardly ever (never) work, especially when threads are distorted and prolly slightly corroded, as they are when the bolt is twisted off.

Edited December 25, 201114 yr by uniberp

Easy-out's are not the answer. If that's the tool that gets somthing out for you then you could have likely removed it with your fingers. They will just break off and leave you in a bigger mess.

 

Drill/heli-coil. If you can - cut the bracket off with a die-grinder so you can remove the rotor and just replace the bracket/bolt with a used one set.

 

GD

some one said it, the threads are in the caliper bracket, not the knuckle /hub assembly. so if one bolt is out and the other has no head, you can bang on it to loosen it up and remove it. once loose you may have to remove the bracket and the rotor at the same time.

 

just buy a used bracket from a yard, or new from the dealer.

or get the whole assembly, hub and caliper used for $35.

Exactly. You will have to remove the caliper bracket with the rotor at the same time. Then you can attempt to remove the broken bolt with heat. I've removed a couple after I got the bracket out of the car. Just make sure to run a thread chaser through the threads and use some anti-seize when you reinstall.

get a used bracket.

 

there is a rust "evaporator"...i forget what it's called, but folks were just talking about it last week in another thread here. apparently it works quite well. soak a rag in it and cover the offending area with the rag and let it set to do it's work.

 

then ideally you hit it with left handed drill bits. they drill and are "turning" counterclockwise so you loose it as you go. if you have access you can drill from the back with a regular drill bit which will effectively loosen it out the back. drilling also artificially heats it up too. i saw a friend of mine set his drill to "LEFTHAND" while using a right handed drill bit...amazingly it drilled the head off the bolt and ended up twisting the shank out, i was surprised how quickly it worked.

 

as a temporary solution to get you by as you source parts, you can leave it and run with one bolt instead of two in the brake caliper bracekt. one bolt will hold just fine, i've done it before.

 

i had a wheel shear off the lug studs in the middle of a 1,500 mile road trip. i found those brake caliper bracket bolts were the same thread as the lug nuts so i pulled one from each front and installed them with lug nuts borrowed off the rear wheels to get me back on the road at 2am in Charlotte, NC. worked like a charm, hardly no time lost!

 

+1 on ignoring ezouts, they're essentially useless for home automotive.