It’s a round-head hex bolt (i.e. the head of the bolt is round and has a hexagonal hole in it). I managed to strip it, before I found out the bolt has been secured with Loctite. As far as I could find out, Loctite is removed by applying heat.
Can I assume that “heat” means a heat gun? A hair dryer won’t work, right?
Any idea how to remove the already stripped bolt? The only thing I can think of is cutting a slot into the head with a Dremel tool.
IMHO, if you can get a vise grips on it, that’s where I’d start. Get as good a grip as you can, crank the jaws tight, and then try to turn the bolt. It’s best if the vise grip jaws have sharp teeth.
Actually, you didn’t say if there’s a nut on the other end or if it threads into a hole - if there’s a nut, I’d leave the vise grips on but try to turn the nut with a box-end wrench.
If this doesn’t work, maybe you could give an idea of what this mysterious hex bolt is holding, and what size it is.
Oh, and some penetrant like WD-40 might make things come apart easier, if rust is part of the issue.
Go to your local hardware store and find something like this. It’s got really sharp ‘teeth’ inside and will grab onto whatevers left of the bolt. Then you can take it out with a wrench. But like someone else said, I’d start with a vice grip before I’d buy a set of these. Even if I didn’t already have one, a vice grip will most likely get a lot more use then these will.
By which I assume you mean it’s an allen head bolt.
By which I assume you mean you rounded out the internal hex (“strip” is usually used to indicate damaging the threads so that they do not engage well, if at all).
I don’t think you have a prayer with a hair dryer. I doubt a heat gun will do it, but I can’t say I’ve tried it. I’ve always used an acetylene torch. You need to get the head of the bolt hot enough for the heat to transfer to the threads where the Loctite is. A torch lets you aim that accurately and gives lots of concentrated heat. A heat gun isn’t nearly as hot, and I suspect a lot of its heat is going to be spread around the area neighboring the bolt head.
Start with the heat, of course. I’d want to see that bolt head glowing cherry red. Cutting a slot or using Vice-grips are both reasonable approaches. Another, which is harder to do but more likely to give a solid grasp on it, is to grind flat two opposite sides of the bolt head so that an open-end wrench could get it.
A picture is worth a thousand words
It’s a pivot bolt for the suspension swingarm of a bicycle. Yes the internal hex is rounded out (thanks Gary_T). I’m not going to take a torch to this though, it’s got plastic parts nearby. I guess I’ll get a heat gun and Dremel tool and start from there.
I’d be leery of the heat gun with plastic nearby. While not as hot as a torch, they’re hot enough to melt most plastics.
A couple other thoughts. You might find a torx socket in a size that can be hammered into the internal hex so that it gives a good grip on the bolt. Used with an impact driver it might loosen that thing without heat. A bit of a long shot on both counts, but if it works, it’s easier than any other method I can think of.
What Gary T said, those are excellent (if budgetarily cumbersome) tools for this kind of predicament. There’s really no graceful way out of this one. Rather a cave man myself, I might look for a way to knock the whole head off the bolt and then drive it on out with a hammer & punch.
Dude, You are so screwed.
Looking at your picture there is no way a pair of vice grips will help, the head of the bolt is a mushroom, no surface to grab.
As far as heat goes, it takes about 450 degrees F to turn loctite into power To get those threads that hot will wind up burning off all the paint around the area, and melting any plastic bushings. There is no way in hell to get this type of tem out of a hair dryer.
I think you only have two shots here.
First find a set of this type of extractor
I have had sucess in the past with stripped allen head cap screws using these. You drive them in with a hammer (lightly) and then the countercolckwise turning with a socket will make them get tighter. Hopefully the bolt then unscrews.
I think your only other approach would be to jig the bike up and drill the bolt out with a drill press. I would not try to free drill this bolt on any bike I would want to ride again.
Good luck
I’d be using what (at least in Australia) is called an “Easy Out”. You drill a hole in the end of the bolt (which should be easy because of the existing socket) and then insert the easy out which has a tapered left hand cutting thread. You turn that anti clockwise and it screws itself into the drilled hole till it jams, then it (hopefully) turns out the dud bolt. I’ve never had one fail.
Just do what you’re thinking with the dremel. Cut a large groove across the head and you a big ass screwdriver to turn it. Fuck the lock tight. Just muscle your way passed that issue.
I was in almost your exact situation yesterday and I used a dremel tool and a huge screwdriver. I was able to break the locktight seal and turn the stripped hex nut.
Good Luck to you.
Second the easy out suggestion; also, there’s a high risk of inadvertently letting some tool slip and damaging that pretty paintwork; mask off everything except the bolt head with some low-tack masking tape, then add a layer of tough duct tape on top of the masking tape; then at least you can work without holding your breath.
Oh the joy of a seized fastener.
For rounded off nuts, I can recommend something like a self tightening cam wrench. But no good for the allen bolt in question, as it’s got a rounded head and so nothing to grip on to from the outside. The Snap-On tool that Rick suggested looks just the job for rounded-out allen and Torx heads. It’s on my wish list now…
Another invaluable item in my tool kit is a little tube of diamond paste suspended in grease - smear some of that between tool and fastener, and the little sharp diamonds grip like buggery.
I’ve never had much joy with stud extractors, finding that the torque needed to shear them is slightly less than the torque needed to extract the bolt. A sharp tap with a heavy hammer doesn’t go amiss in most situations, though I’d be cautious about doing that on an MTB swingarm.
If none of the suggested techniques work (and they’re all good), you could always drill/Dremel off the head - assuming the bolt on the other side can be removed, of course, or you won’t get the swingarm off. You could then flatten off 2 sides of the protruding stud, and use a normal open spanner.
In the meantime, I’m off now to try and crack open the case on a Victorinox Swiss Army watch. The jewellers gave up when I took it in, and said they’d have to send it off, so replacing a cheap battery would cost £45. Sounds like a challenge to me - it’s currently soaking in Plus-Gas anti seize juice, and it’s about to meet a 1-ton vice.
Easy-outs are available in different sizes. The trick to using an easy-out is to use the biggest one you can. This entails drilling out the bolt so you can fit it in there. What most people usually do is try the smallest one first, which always snaps off. Then you have the problem of having to drill out the easy-out, and that’s when you find out that easy-outs are hardened steel and a pain to drill out. Use the biggest one that will fit.
Also, there are different types of locktight. Blue locktight is commonly used on bikes. Connectors installed with blue locktight can be removed with hand tools. Red locktight requires heat, but I’ve never seen it used on bicycles, so you should be ok without the torch.
Having done a lot of fixing other people’s mistakes, I too vote for an easy-out.
Having lived next door to a somewhat dodgy mechanic, I have seen some fairly impressive kludges to various problems. The ‘Nigel’ approach to this would be to TIG-weld a hex nut or something similar to the head of the bolt, and then get brutal with a torque wrench. Or, if he was in a real hurry, just TIG a cheap socket wrench directly onto the bolt and start ratcheting.
He got through a lot of tools, but then I don’t think he paid for most of them. :dubious:
It’s not listed on their website, but these guys carry a book called “Build a Metal Disintegrator” which, if you’re not pressed for time, will tell you how to build the perfect tool to get the bolt out for about $100 in parts. Barring that, then the drilling suggestions are probably what I’d do. Start with a small drill and work your way up to the larger bits, so you’ll be less likely to damage the paint. Of course, the real fun comes when you have to put it all back together again. 
I’ve got a full set (outside teeth to grab heads or studs, and internal teeth to grip stripped-out screws) of the un-screwers from Sears and they’re worth their weight in gold.
If you put them into a screw gun, push hard on it and go S-L-O-W. You want torque, not speed here. If you go too fast or don’t puh in hard enough, the thing will just hop off.
With that button-head, you’ll want the type that goes into the screwhead, rather than the outside of the screw head.
Grabbing heads, studs, screwing… oh my, this sounds kinky. And even worse, one of the google ads is for sex bolts. Completely safe for work…I’ve also heard them called Chicago screws.
I’d also go with the screw extractor approach, using the largest one possible - it’s no fun if/when they snap off. Many of you have probably read Peter Egan’s definitions of mechanic’s tools, but here is what he has to say about this:
OK, I got a set of Easy Out extractors.
I’m still not sure which size to use, and how deep I need to drill. Since the head of this bolt is so thin, I assume I need to drill into the shaft of the bolt? So I’d choose an Easy-Out that’s somewhat smaller than the bolt itself, correct?
