Happy thanksgiving! Now I really need some help... egr cooler bolt broke

[Tractorguy77]

Hello...

Once again I got stuck doing a DIY... at some point I should realize that those are not for me and I better leave it to the pros... anyhow, long weekend and I tried to replace the egr cooler which had a broken spring. Doing so I ended up snapping one of the bolts, see picture. I think it happened due to the bolt not having a clean thread but rather grease and dirt in it... this came to me after the fact... it was really hard to extract and then snapped... From comparing the bolt length to the new ones I know I do not have much stuck inside, see image.

Now to my questions... how do I get this fixed? I guess I would need to get it drilled out. I have never done this and the spot is tight with nearly no viability. Anything I can take off to gain more room? I believe that I will not be able to use an extractor Since my believe is the rest of the bolt is stuck due to dirt in the threads.

Let me add... it’s a e70 Diesel

Thank you!

[ffmeltdown]

Originally Posted by Tractorguy77

Hello...

Once again I got stuck doing a DIY... at some point I should realize that those are not for me and I better leave it to the pros... anyhow, long weekend and I tried to replace the egr cooler which had a broken spring. Doing so I ended up snapping one of the bolts, see picture. I think it happened due to the bolt not having a clean thread but rather grease and dirt in it... this came to me after the fact... it was really hard to extract and then snapped... From comparing the bolt length to the new ones I know I do not have much stuck inside, see image.

Now to my questions... how do I get this fixed? I guess I would need to get it drilled out. I have never done this and the spot is tight with nearly no viability. Anything I can take off to gain more room? I believe that I will not be able to use an extractor Since my believe is the rest of the bolt is stuck due to dirt in the threads.

Let me add... it’s a e70 Diesel

Thank you!

I think they are stainless steel, be tough to drill out. Or they are aluminum alloy. Use a magnet to check.

[Tractorguy77]

Thank you ffmeltdown for your reply. The bolt is non magnetic... pointing to a non-ferrous metal... if I remember right

[Juno01]

You're going to have to drill. It's not going to want to come out the rest of the way so I would try and thread it back in and pop it out the back side. Good luck!

[Tractorguy77]

I like the idea of popping it out in the back... drilling necessary or can it be pushed out somehow? I assume you would use a right handed drill bit to drill/force it to pop out in the back, or?

[Juno01]

It's such a small piece that just drilling or tapping on it might knock it out. They sell reverse thread drills bits but until you get in there and try it's pure it's just guess work on what method would be easiest. There isn't very much room to do anything but I think it would help a lot if you removed the rad.

[RL18]

Okay so you broke the bolt on the exhaust side of the egr connection? And broke the bolt off at the end maybe 3-4 threads in? Why not cut the bolt down to the good threads and tighten in?
You still have plenty of thread to hold it in.

Maybe while you're at it install and egr race pipe, block off the coolant lines, and zip tie the egr valve off to the side and be done with it forever.

[avocet]

Believe it or not I was able to connect the pipe up with one bolt as a temporary install when I had that same bolt break. No leakage, no smells. I kept procrastinating the repair until that vehicle was written off.

[djbmw1]

Originally Posted by avocet

Believe it or not I was able to connect the pipe up with one bolt as a temporary install when I had that same bolt break. No leakage, no smells. I kept procrastinating the repair until that vehicle was written off.

Same thing happened to me ... I also temporarily used 1 bolt to secure it which worked well until winter set in. With the cold temps I started to smell exhaust fumes in the cabin for the first minute or so, until the exhaust warmed up and expanded. I tried to weld the top lobe... but I ended up taking off the EGR and fixing it the right way (and having to grind off my weld).

Here's what I did:

Used a right angle drill and cobalt drill bits to drill the titanium piece out. Once I could see the 'threads' starting to show, I used a small flat head to start picking at the remaining threads inside the hole. Once all out I re-tapped the hole and voila! I only broke one bit ... but the process did end up taking 4 hrs or so of very slow drilling.