Exhaust re-assembly question

[Morpheus]

Gentlemen,

All told, my exhaust project has gone swimmingly. All studs were successfully removed, parts have been blasted/surfaced/painted/plated, and I am ready to start re-assembly.
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The lone issue is the one crossover pipe heat shield bolt that broke during removal.
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I employed my left hand drill bits to burrow into the bolt a bit, and then promptly broke off a POS extractor inside it during the attempted removal.
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(FYI, the broken one is the leftmost bolt on the larger section of the shield.)

My question is this: What would you do?
Use the remaining bolt to secure the larger heat shield and not worry about it?
Or, would you grind away the remains of the extractor and continue drilling out the bolt?

What say you?


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[SS Spoiler]

Happened to me also, one broke loose the other gone. Made a new one out
stainless and held them both on with some long ss hose clamps. Going on 20
years no problem. [nobody can see it]

[David T]

Happened to me also, one broke loose the other gone. Made a new one out
stainless and held them both on with some long ss hose clamps. Going on 20
years no problem. [nobody can see it]

Having had experience removing broken bolts I would try to remove it. At the very least go with SS Spoiler's suggestion and use hose clamps so it isn't just hanging on the one good bolt. It will vibrate and break the one bolt loose.

[Morpheus]

I suppose a SS hose clamp might be a good way to go, since nobody will see the area.

[Rich_NYS]

Would you please post your stud/nut removal approach?

Thanks!

[David T]

Would you please post your stud/nut removal approach?

Thanks!

If anything protrudes enough that you can grab, I heat it up and screw it out. If it is flush or less I drill it as close to the center as possible starting with a small drill and go progressively larger till it hit the threads. Then I chisel it out. In some cases you can weld a bolt to the broken part and unscrew it. If you broke an extractor or drill or tap you must chisel it out with a pin punch or centerpunch before you can drill if you can. If you can't you have to get a special drill to drill hardened steel. That is a b-tch and is very hard to stay centered. Especially in aluminum. Sometimes you wind up oversizing the hole and you have to weld it or heli-coil it to fix it. In some cases I screw a bolt in, cut it flush, and drill and retap the hole. A lot depends on where it is, what it is and how you need to end up. If you have the cross-over pipe on the floor it is a LOT easier and because it is steel you have more options. I tend not to have a lot of success with extractors or left-hand drills. I prefer heat. If the bolt was stuck enough to be broken off you usually aren't going to be screwing the thing out. Extractors tend to enlarge the bolt too making it even harder to turn. And since they are hardened you can break them easily without warning, they don't bend before breaking. For stubborn nuts heat is again the way to go. If you can't use heat because of the area, cutting and then chiseling are the other options. ALWAYS use Never-Seize ESPECIALLY with steel bolts in aluminum when reassembling. On exhaust hardware I just always use heat knowing it will be difficult taking things apart because of the repeated heat cycling on those parts. There is no magic, just experience and patience.