Broken bolt removal

[bbab3]

Not sure it this is the right section of the forum for this question. But,I have removed bolts broken off before by holding a nut over what was left of the bolt and arc welding the nut to it. They usually would come out fairly easily but not always. My question has to do with mig welding or arc welding on a full assembled motor. Would welding the nut to the bolt also arc through various engine parts, such as crank to bearings, piston to cylinder.

 

[RustyRatRod]

Not sure it this is the right section of the forum for this question. But,I have removed bolts broken off before by holding a nut over what was left of the bolt and arc welding the nut to it. They usually would come out fairly easily but not always. My question has to do with mig welding or arc welding on a full assembled motor. Would welding the nut to the bolt also arc through various engine parts, such as crank to bearings, piston to cylinder.

No, not as long as you put the ground lead as close as possible to your work. I highly recommend MIG or TIG as it is much more precise than arc.

 

[pittsburghracer]

I was a Millwright for 33 years and what we usually tried to do was lets say for example it was a 3/8 broken bolt. We would take a smaller 5/16 ( grade 8 heavy duty ) flat washer and easily weld it to the broken bolt. then we would weld a 3/8 nut to the flatwasher. by then it was a little heat soaked and the broken bolt would easily come out.

 

[bbab3]

Thanks for the replies. That confirms what I thought. Better to ask than find out the hard way!

 

[furyus2]

I would unhook the battery.

 

[supertruck]

Also if you have certain electronic ignitions you can damage the pickup in the distributor if you weld on the engine. I ran a Mel's electronic distributor on my Ford 2500cc race motor. It has a Pertronix Ignitor pickup and I burned up 2 of them before I talked to Mel and found out that the distributor, or at least the electronics, has to be removed before welding.