A new favourite tool!

[ryan951s]

So, this past weekend I installed an oil restrictor and oil vapour catch can on to my car. My oil consumption at DE days has increased with the new turbo, so I wanted to put in the restrictor and, since the intake had to come off anyway, I thought I might as well do the breather tank from Lindsey Racing while I was at it. Info on the tank is here if anyone is interested: http://www.lindseyracing.com/LR/Parts/BREATHERTANK.html

As usual from Lindsey, a very high quality part and bolted up exactly as advertised.

Anyway, I ripped into everything on Sat morning and everything was going great. All that was left was to undo the 2 cam tower bolts to replace with the bolts in the Lindsey kit. I got my 6mm allen key socket on my rachet; first bolt comes out no problem, but I get an ugly SNAP on the 2nd bolt, and the allen key breaks off inside the bolt and will NOT come out! AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!

After spending a couple hours trying assorted ways to remove the broken key bit or bolt completely, all I ended up with was a dulled centre punch, two broken drill bits, bruised knuckles from the vice grips popping off, and intense frustration. How can such hardened metal actually break?

I headed to the local parts store to pick up some vacuum port plugs and was just doing some window shopping when I saw it: the super-duper bolt extractor kit! It is essentially 5 different sized "sockets" that have really sharp reverse threads in them. Take the appropriate sized socket, slide it over the head of the nut or bolt you need to remove, and as you "undo" the bolt with your rachet, the extractor threads itself on to the bolt tighter and tighter until the bolt gives way. Essentially, it is like an easy-out, but looks like a socket and goes around the outside of the bolt instead of drilling a hole and getting it out from the inside.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to have a rounded bolt head that you can't get to, so I thought I'd pass this tip along. The extractor worked like magic, cost 30 bucks for the kit of 5 and would have saved my knuckles a lot of abuse if I'd just known about it a few hours earlier!

[nize]

that is great, i'll have to remember to pick up a set. i'm thinking this will be the perfect tool in case you round out one of those clutch pressure plate bolts, or the cv bolts.