I have been
inside a lot of engines. Ford, of course. Chevy. First engine I ever built was a Dodge Dart Slant Six. Indestructible little bastard, those were.
I have a lot of friends with a lot of cars that I’ve worked on over the years, too. My aging land rover. Partner’s Alfa. Shit, that Alfa, one winter we took it apart. I mean Apart. We held every part of that drivetrain in our grubby little hands. That is and was a fine engine, with a lot of very clever engineering, and damned if it wasn’t still being made right up to a little while back.
MG’s. VW’s. Porsches. Yesterday I helped a co worker pull a couple broken studs out of a Porsche 911 case, and it was not pretty- he ended up welding nuts onto the studs and working them slowly while I heated the area around the broken stud. You have to be extremely careful, because the wrong amount of heat in the wrong place can distort that casting. Still, he will be able to put in the new studs which will be installed properly, and this engine will run like a striped ape.
Eventually, if you do this stuff enough, it gets in your blood. I have plenty of days when I think, damn, wouldn’t it be nice to never have to wrench on a car again, to just do like most people do, and drive them, and pay someone else when they need fixing. But I can never walk past someone porting a head and not stand and watch, or help, if asked to do so. I have yanked broken studs out of Mazda exhaust manifolds (Common) more times than I care to recall, and changed the suspension on so many cars it’s not funny.
You get to know people, too. I have met some of the people on some of the teams, and even a few of the drivers; the good old days of drivers coming from among the ranks- especially in the top series- is over, but for a few flyers. That’s why I like the guys who race on mud and small local asphalt tracks. Most of them hammer their cars together all week long to be ready to race on sunday, and they know exactly what the car will do. That makes for a good show, in my book. And you know those gys have scabs on their knuckles under those nomex gloves. I love ’em all.
I have an older Honda engine, one-lunger out of a lawnmower. Was putting a new magneto coil on and broke off a mounting bolt in a threaded boss on the cylinder. Cause was over torquing of an old, heat-ruined bolt. The rescue here involves a crystallized bolt of about #10 size, and Easy Outs of that size are chancy. Is it best to bite the bullet and get a new cylinder? Seems the engine is low on compression anyway, and could use a rebuild, so maybe even a cylinder-piston set already fitted?
The Honda’s mowing days are over, but I have plans to remount the engine and part of the deck to a fabbed base to make a power-gurdy for hauling crab pots (using the wheel-drive PTO) and use the blade-drive to spin a generator for battery-charging. The engine is electric-start and has blade AND wheel-drive clutches already fitted, so it is perfect for this application. Removing that one bad bolt has stalled the project so far.
Agree, working on cars takes on a certain zen much like shooting… You DO have to concentrate to not screw it up! And yes, there will be blood… Working on old cars has always been a relaxing time for me.
My father had three sons and two daughters and I’m the only one who really got into cars. Dad loved all his kids but he and I developed a very strong bond while working on our cars together. We would talk for hours on anything mechanical whether it was a tricky diagnosis of the emissions system in his modern Chevy or what he was going to do with his Model A project.
I thank him for instilling in me a love of machines. I’m actually looking forward to rebuilding the engine in my Alfa (threw a rod bearing). I plan on making some modifications to wake up the original spirit of the power plant while still meeting required emissions standards. I’m sure my dad will be looking over my shoulder, guiding my hand and wincing at the busted knuckles.
Rivrdog,
Use the procedure that Og outlined in his message. I’ve used it numerous times and have never had it fail, but I will admit that I don’t remember ever having a broken stud in an aluminum block. Don’t know why it shouldn’t work, though.
When it comes to Easy-Outs, if you have a set of the LH screw type, pitch them into the garbage before you break one off and make a bad situation much, much worse. If you want “Easy-Outs” that have a chance of working, get a set of the square, tapered kind. Look at the second kind here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easy_out
Dog, if the bolt is broken off flush, and you have a decent drill press, Id try drilling it out. The tricky bit is to get the surface as flat as you can, then center punch it as precisely in center as you can. Then use graduated drills, each a bit (say, two number sizes) larger than the last. If you get it dead in the middle, you can eventually drill out the screw and leave the threads, Then you can pick them out like a spring wiht a dental pick.
Don’t ask me jow I know this.
Worst case scenario, you drill out the hole oversize and helicoil it.
Yeah, I’ve done helicoil before, but never in that cast aluminum/potmetal, and no, I don’t have a drill press. I probably know some folks with them, though…next thing is to tear the engine the rest of the way down, need to do the head/valves anyway, and better look at the bottom end, too. That 199cc mill has 30 seasons of hard mowing on it. For all I know, it may not be rebuildable without a new bottom & Middle anyway. When it last ran, it only had 80# wet compression, and I think I could hear crank bearing slap.
Well, let me make a reccomendation. Throw it out. or sell it for parts. You can buy a replacement brand spanking new engine at HFT that is as good as or better then the Honda original. And the Honda “original” replacement part you will probably get? Probably also made in China. China is making them so well because Honda in their infinite wisdom shipped some of their manufacturing there, and the Chinese just ran with it. I can tell you the HFT engines are duplicates of the hondas, even parts interchange. So you might be able to use all your other parts as well.
Left hand drill bits have worked amazingly well for me in some applications like drilling out broken studs.
Also Kroil is a marvelous penetrating lubricant.