Sod it I've Sheared a Bolt!

It's been a good while since I acquired the Rover, and one of the first jobs I did was to change all the coolant hoses - 6 in total:

Top Radiator
Bottom Radiator
Heater Matrix exit
Heater Matrix entrance
Thermostat to Water Pump x 2

That was back in 1995/6 and over that time some of the hoses have aged, judging by how some aged better than others, I think that one or two were a poor quality reproduction.
Anyway, I decided that it was time they were all changed. Sometimes, as I've just found out, some things on an old car should be changed just for the sake of it! especially if it's been along time. That way things don't seize up!

The two hoses that connect the thermostat to the water pump - used for either the heater matrix return, or for the normal water return when the thermostat is closed can be a bit of a dog to change. Well the top one is OK, but the bottom one is really awkward. I remember last time it was a swine! So I decided to remove the elbow that joins these two hoses together. You can just make out the top of these two hoses from this photo, just to the left of the top of the main radiator hose - click on the photo to enlarge it! I'd got plenty of gaskets for this as it's never been off in 38 years, I should have been prepared.........



I gave the bolts a good squirt of WD40 and then I took one bolt out, fine. Then the other....not fine, the head of the bolt was in my spanner, and the bolt still in the head - Sod It (or other expletives!).You can see in the photo on the left the bolt still sticking out on the left hand side. Ignore the white stuff, that's just rag in the thermostat housing and hose to keep the dirt out.

I decided that the best course of action would be to soak the bolt in WD40 for a few days and see if I could get some nuts. I checked the thread with a thread gauge which was 20 TPI, that made it a ¼UNC thread. I popped into my local hardware store (well local to where I work) Pollards in Fenny Stratford near Milton Keynes. Superb shop, real old fashioned place where you can buy anything from 1 screw to a few pounds (or should that be kilos) of screws! They had imperial nuts in stock. I found out that UNC and Whitworth are almost identical (apparently with the exception of ½" version for some reason. So armed with two nuts, I started on my next cunning plan - to tighten two nuts against each other on the remaining half inch of bolt sticking out to create a pseudo bolt head to use to undo it. I also popped into Halfords to buy some Shock and Unlock which I'd seen advertised in Practical Classics - the idea being to shock the bolt with a freezing spray which makes small cracks in the crud holding the bolt for penetrating oil to seep in to. Sounds good so far.

I'd been spraying it with WD40 for a couple of days - each time I went outside and was starting to feel lucky. Fastened the two nuts on, and with a small spanner - so as not to put too much torque on the bolt, gently rocked it backwards and forwards, starting with a tightening motion - apparently that's a good move to start. It felt good, a small bit of motion, kept spraying it and took all evening gently moving it a fraction backwards and forwards, then...........

Oh Sod in Hell, it's sheared again!

There is now only one thing for it, I have got to drill it out. I've been searching the internet on how do I do this. I've also been reaching out to friends (Pilkie!) for advice on what to do.

So, next plan. I've bought a new drill (old one broke last year) a new set of imperial drill bits and some easy-outs. I will be very careful with the latter - stories on the internet suggest that they are made of hardened steel, and if they're snapped off - you wont be able to drill them out! Better not do that then.

It seems that the best thing to do is to find the middle of the bolt as best I can, centre punch, and then start with a 2mm drill and gradually increase the diameter until you get within 1mm of the thread. I'll then try with the easy-outs (gently) and if the heat and vibration from drilling has broken the hold I might be in luck. otherwise, I'll try the next size drill up - probably an imperial one that is inbetween the metric sizes - if I have one that wont drill through the threads!, and if that doesn't work, I'll use my Black & Decker Wizard to grind the last bit away until I'm really close to the thread. Then I'll either easy-out again, or pick the threads out! This time I'll win!

Saturday 7th March 2009

Right, today's the day. I'm either going to succeed, or ruin my cylinder head!

I followed my instructions, some came from my mate Pilkie, some from the internet, and some out of my head!

I found the centre of the stud. I'm a bit of a perfectionist sometimes so I used a thingy out of my daughters old pencil case - bit like a compass but with two points instead of one point and a pencil. Anyway I found the centre - fat lot of good it did, I still ended up off centre!

I started with a 2mm drill, then I found out just how hard these studs are. I also realised just how much I'd abused my drills over the years - so, I turned to my brand new imperial drills - nice and sharp!  The first drill is the most important, this is  the guide for all others. I had to carefully keep the drill horizontal and straight through the stud. After all, don't want to end up drilling into the water jacket do I!

I went to a bigger and bigger drill size, until I got to this stage - as you can see, for some reason my hole is getting more and more off centre - how does it do that?

Before I started, I measured the depth of the thread that was OK (on the right), which is ¾". That's good because I only need ½" of thread for the bolt, so there's ¼" space at the end of the broken stud. I don't have a depth guage on my drill, so I used a piece of red insulation tape wrapped around the drill as my guage. You have to be careful doing it this way though as when you get to that depth, the red 'flag' will be pushed back along the drill, care is the order of the day. Well the whole day really.

As I'd reached the end of the road as far as drilling goes, I tried with the easy-outs. This was difficult as the only one that would fit in the hole, woudn't fit very well in my tap holder (shank was too small). It didn't look like it was going to move, so I reached for the Wizard! The Black & Decker Wizard is a bit like a Dremmel, I've used it a bit in the past, but today, it really earned it's keep. There's a bit that I always thought was for engraving, but it's better than that, it ground its way through the bolt slowly but effortlessly. I used it to grind the stud away and enlarge the hole.

I kept going with the Wizard until the ridges of the thread started to be exposed, I kept looking in the hole with a mirror and a flashlight (point the flashlight in the mirror!). When enough thread ridges at the entrance to the hole had been exposed, I started with the tap, slowly turned the tap a little

 forwards and alot back to gently bite into the thread and also clear the swarf. Besides, it'd be bad if the tap broke!

When it didn't want to turn any further, I went back to the Wizard and ground a bit more away.

This is a sod of a stud to remove, nothing will make it budge! The only thing removing this stud is the tap to cut it out!

5 hours later Ta-Da! All done. Well, I did have to remove the radiator and alternator brackets before I started drilling, and then when it's the first time I do a job that feels like open heart surgery, I always adhere to the "measure twice, cut once" rule.

Do I feel Proud of myself or what!!

Interior Refreshment

Along with probably most other classic car owners, we like to spend ages making the outside look off the car as perfect as possible. Then we tinker with the engine to make it smoother, more efficient, or just do things for the sake of it. We often ignore the interior. Yes we give it a good hoover, spit 'n' polish and the like, but sometimes forget what it really looks like. After all, most of the time, we're sitting on it and not looking at it.

I decided this winter (2008) to change that. First of all, I thought that I needed to replace the carpet. The existing carpet was original, and much of the threadbare areas were my fault! When I was a kid, I always had to sit in the middle in the back, usually, that meant standing on the transmission tunnel, arm on each front seat - just ready to be propelled through the windscreen at the slightest whiff of an accident!

Anyway, I thought if I replace the carpet, the seats are going to look shabby. Oh dear, that means getting the front seats restitched and I can't do that - I'll have to find someone. Then I'll have to dye them black again and feed them to get them supple again.

The front seat belts need changing as they're shabby, and while I'm at it, I'll put seatbelts in the back! The cost of this is going up fast!

Here's some photos of the interior when I removed the carpet. I wish I'd taken a 'before' shot, but I must have been too impatient to remove everything!

Looks shabby doesn't it! There is some welding required at some point if you look carefully down the sides of the inner sills, but it's been like this for a very long time. It was like that when I had the sills done back in 1995. The sills are however very strong. I'll paint them up and waxoyl everywhere to ensure they last longer.
Sometime in the next few years I'm going to buy a welder, teach myself to weld and when I feel competent, I'll fix it myself. Until that time comes, I know it will last.
You'll also see a white patch in the drivers footwell and you should also see 6 rubber bungs - 3 on each side. Where the white patch is, the rubber bung was missing and the resulting hole covered by a piece of scrap metal that appeared to be glued on!! I found the rubber bung under the felt under the back seat!! How on earth did it get there! Anyway, I've jenolited it, put the bung in, and painted it. Hopefully it will now last.


While everything was out, and before I start painting, I needed to clean up the seatbelt anchoring points. Shown here is the buckle anchor for the rear belt. These anchorages have never been used - rear belts were optional extras back in 1971. So all threads were cleaned out to remove old paint and surface rust by running a tap through the thread. There's plenty of taps and dies on eBay for imperial sizes (thankfully!).

Next it was time to paint the floor. I decided to get some Hammerite hammered finish - doesn't show the imperfections!
I had done some searching on the internet around soundproofing and some posts suggested using foam and expressed the qualities of camping mats! other sites suggested using as many different types and as much as possible! so, here you'll see that where I can, I'm actually using both foam and felt. If you examine the gearbox tunnel closely, you'll see that there is foam underneath the felt. You will also see grey squares on the floor, this is Wickes self adhesive lead flashing. Apparently this contains bitumen and has good sound proofing qualities. The idea here is to help to take the 'ring' out of the panel and therefore deaden the sound.
I bought the carpet from Coverdale (www.carcarpets.co.uk). This was excellent, all cut to the correct pattern and ready to fit. Yes it took a nip and tuck there - but so did the original if you look carefully at what you take out!
Here is the gearbox tunnel with the centre console back on. This is an absolute swine to fit. Carpet is flat, the tunnel is not! This is the best I could get it, and actually, I'm really quite pleased. The colour is Gold and is a new colour to the Coverdale catalogue.
While I was at it, I checked out the gaiters and bought a new one for the gear leaver, it's a bit awkward to get the centre console off in the first place, easier without the seats so the best time to sort it out.
The carpet is in now - looks good huh!
You will see that the edges of the footwell carpet is bound in black. When you order carpet from Coverdale, remember to tell them what colour you want any binding done in. I think it looks best if you get it done in the same colour as the interior - goes well with the blackseats.
You'll also see here that I've put the front seatbelts in. The belts are a brand new set from Securon. The Securon website will tell you which belts will fit which car - but order them from your local motor factor and not direct from Securon - they're not setup to sell to the public so you'll pay more! Seatbelt fittings are standard, even in our modern metric world, seatbelts are still imperial - 7/16 UNF bolts hold them in to all cars.

Here it's all finished! I've even put a small lapbelt in the back - well you never know how many Grandchildren I'm going to get (here's hoping) but now I can put 3 in the back and get them into classic cars from an early age!

All the leather has now been stitched and dyed black. I found a great chap, Tim of Tove Trimmings in Towcester. He's spent all his life in the motor industry including Triumph and Aston Martin. To dye the leather, I used a Woolies kit and I found it to be very good. I did find that to clean the leather, because it had never been treated in 38 years, was to use the supplied Woolies cleaner with wire wool. It sounds harsh, but it isn't, it scours the top surface to then allow the cleaners and hide food into the leather to help condition it. You will be amazed at the amount of dirt that comes off, unbelievable! Overall it was a very lengthy process and I must admit, I was pushing it a bit at times - filling the dining room up with leather chairs that had been cleaned, then rubbing in hide food in the lounge in front of the telly! Don't worry, she's still talking to me! The only other thing to be careful about with the Woolies kit is the final step of putting on the sealing paste - don't rub too hard, keep it very light otherwise you'll polish off the dye. It won't be sealed until this step is complete.