stripped turbo bolt holes!

[ryanman]

I've never had a problem with any turbo bolts, ever. Just run the car and get them nice and hot and they'll come right out. Heat is your best friend.

 

[beat90tsi]

I have a few bolts busted off in my evo3 housing. 2 on the manifold flange, and 1 on the exhaust housing flange Those bolts are wicked hard, and they're gaulded pretty bad. I am having no luck with local machine shops, they won't take the job. But I did buy some nickel based, aerosol 2600deg anti-seize to help prevent this from happening again.

One guy locally tig welded some studs onto the existing busted bolt and was able to extract 1 ( I used to have 3 broken off) but the last 2 are even more troublesome than that first one.

Does anyone have any suggestions for getting those suckers out? I just ported the housing, even the WG passage, so I'd prefer not to replace the housing, but if I could find one at the right price I'd do that to save myself more trouble.

 

[1badtsi]

drill them out, then use a tap and die set to repair the thread, thats what i did on my evo, good as new now

 

[beat90tsi]

what kind of drill bits? I've ruined a few titanium and cobalt ones already.

 

[hellotbone]

OH man good luck with that I did the same on my T3/T4 and they are so hard the housing tha t is to tap drill or anything its majorly hard. I ended up putting it in my milling machine and using a carbide drill to drill it I wrecked a bunch of Ti ones too. Anyways got it drilled out and then tapped it for a helicoil another HUGE task again the housing is so hard its unreal and I have all the good tools. I pitty you because I know how hard it is and how much of a pain in the ass it is to fix. You could also try to drill it and tap it for a larger bolt the stock 2G manifold can take a bigger bolt then what is in it now.

 

[1fast97gsx]

thanks for all the help. Ended up just saving what was left of the threads and then cranking a nut on from the bottom as well. Hopefully it holds.

 

[beat90tsi]

is the heli-coil an improvement because the metal is less prone to gaulding?

 

[desolateboosted]

One of the bolt holes were fugared on my turbo. 3 of them were still good. I used a longer skinier bolt with a nut on the other end and just tightened it to the max. It works and I checked it periodocally. When you do remove the bolt/nut do not re use them. I made the mistake of reusing it and couldn't tighten the nut. The heat over time had killed the strength of the nut. luckily I got it out to replace with a new pair. By the time I could take it off the nut was rounded off a good bit. This is a ghetto rig method but imo it works.

 

[Vandy4g63]

It's called helicoil.. Get the full kit for the thread size with the drill and tip inclufed. If you follow the directions it will work fine... Do a few and it's fn easy.

be careful with those. A buddy of mine used those for a while on his motorcycle head, and eventually with the heat they came out. Try to just get them re-tapped, if possible.

Also, just take the whole turbo in, and put a dab of locktite on the clamp that holds it together. That way you know the seals are in-tact. I had something similar with the oil return line happen to me last summer and I think the machinist took apart the turbo jsut for fun, and now it looks like my brand new tubo is on its way out.

Hardest thing about the whole process was finding someone willing to work on it...

ALso, mom and pop places are more than willing to haggle with you if you pay cash