oops I did it again

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72_dart

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Ok guys so how should I go about this? Usually when this happens to me I'm making something stupid so I either start over from scratch or I abandon the project. This time I'm hell bent on fixing this. So my dad never showed me how to get a broken tap out. Since you all are like surrogate fathers how do I remedy this? Thanks in advance.
 

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You could try a pin punch and a hammer to fracture it into pieces OR use the pin punch to back it out of the threads if you are lucky.Also heat the manifold with a torch to expand the cast iron and it may just back out.
 
Darter6 said:
You could try a pin punch and a hammer to fracture it into pieces OR use the pin punch to back it out of the threads if you are lucky.Also heat the manifold with a torch to expand the cast iron and it may just back out.
Click to expand...

X2 , blow any chips out, dental picks, mini needle nose, try to get it un-jammed.. Good luck. I believe a heli-coil is in your future.
 
Just as advice fore the future, use the correct tapping lube for cast iron: dry or bacon grease. (I like the bacon grease idea LOL) There are specific taps for cast iron that you can read up on online; otherwise, you have to go slow with a standard steel tap. The iron should break out in small, crumbly chips.

Be careful if you use torch heat; cast iron will crack a lot more easily than steel with localized heat. I would try mechanical means (needle nose pliers or similar) to back it out whole. Some WD40 or other very light oil may help.

I helicoiled the same hole in my /6 exhaust manifold, as suggested above.
 
As above, there are broken tap extractors, I think snap on sells them. They have 4 fingers that go down the flutes in the broken tap and you can carefully turn it out, use some heat! Option number two, taps are, as you found out, hardened and very brittle. You can break it up in situ with a center punch. Likely, once the broken pieces are out you will need to heli coil it,or just drill and re tap and use a bigger fastener.
 
hey thanks guys, i got the broken piece off with some heat and an automatic center punch (its all i had) I was able to back it out until i could get some needle nose pliers on it. then I went out and bought a new tap. And then I figured out why the first one broke....because it was bottomed out in the hole. ofcorse i didnt relize this while I was f---ing up the good threads that I had already made. looks like I'll get to go the heli-coil route.

those tap extractors look real cool. I didnt know they existed
 
Perhaps you need a 'bottoming' tap to get the threads clean all the way down to the bottom....
 
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