Hello rustlovers! At the end of the last post we were left with a half disassembled Suburban and hints about a motorcycle project. Well lets take a closer look at the ‘burb’ and problems you will encounter with cars of any vintage.
Most projects turn out to be more work than you expect. The gamble has proven this twofold. First it turned out to be a blown top end instead of a timing chain and as I dug deeper into the motor I found both exhaust manifolds to be cracked.
Memorial Day was half price day at the local junk yard so my friend Rage and I put together a travel tool kit and went on a suburban safari. We found a nice organ donor with the whole front end off for convenient exhaust access. I went to work with the sawzall and cut the pipes behind the flange while Rage started yanking bolts. In about 30 minutes we had 2 nice manifolds and, on our way out, we spotted a Chevy 1 ton in great shape so we pulled a fender and front bumper off of that too.
Now I can just throw the motor together and go right? …right? Nah. Some of the exhaust studs had another plan. They decided to break off. Oh! The all-too-common lament of the broken bolt! The tragedy that turns the simple turn of a ratchet into hours of torching, drilling, welding, lubing, taping and on, IF you’re lucky enough to have access.
Screw extractors work fine if you snapped the head off of a clean bolt in a clean hole but otherwise they are quite useless. I have my own method.
Step 1: lube
Step 2: go to bed
Yeah, let that stuff soak. I don’t care what you use just give it time to do its job.
Next grab some spare allen wrenches and pick one just smaller than the bolt, on this one I used a 3/16″. Cut the small end off of the allen wrench and then drill a hole through the bolt the same diameter as the allen wrench size (3/16″). The result is a hole just smaller than your new piece of hex stock
Now pound that hex piece into the hole with a hammer!

Still love rusty cars? To actually get that busted bolt out requires patience and finesse. I used a map gas torch to heat it then lube to cool it about 6 times before I got it to budge. The best part of the hextractor is that (unlike a conventional extractor) it will twist before it snaps or strips!