Sunday, March 25, 2007

Rounded Bolt Heads Suck

I find myself under a minor time crunch to get my Suzuki VX800 street-worthy again. Lady Luck and I have a variety of guests staying with us for most of April. In May, it's going to start getting hot out. Thus, I basically have this week to get the work done.

Also, my tabs will be EXTRA expired come May....

Now, I expect I have four to six hours worth of work to do to get the thing passing emissions. Then I need to get new tires on, which I figure will be about an hours worth of garage time on my part.

Of course, that's not counting the filthy, despicable, rounded-off bolt that I can't get out of a valve cover. It's in a terrible, tiny little nook that I can't get a ratchet into, or many other tools for that matter.

I bought some Craftsman "Grab It" bolt removers. They seem like excellent tools, except they won't grab this particular bolt. It's too small, and too rounded.

So that means I need to spend some of my valuable garage-time this week going to buy some Vise-Grips. Mmmm, productive.

Maybe I'll get the rest of the work done more quickly than I'm anticipating, but it's frustrating all the same.

Especially because that bike needs to be ridden. I'm starting to feel rather guilty about leaving it in the garage for so long.

So, that's my excitement for this week. Can anyone recommend another good way to get that sucker out?

3 comments:

Combatscoot said...

Use a punch to tap a dent in the middle of it, then drill the head off. Use visegrips on the shaft that is left.
John

xtian said...

spray with wd40, heat up the engine,drill a line in the head then use a screwdriver and hammer to force it to turn by kicking it horizontally. chances are
1/ you'll break the screw in half
2/ you'll kick that screw till the whole head exploded
3/ you'll be bleeding

then, drill the head off and Use visegrips on the shaft that is left.
good luck

Toolman said...

You might want to try Grip-Tite Super Sockets - available at Sears. You'll be amazed at how well they work on rounded bolts, rusted nuts, etc.