hello guys...

I was replacing my valve cover gaskets.... and upon bolting down the breather cover.... I snapped one of the bolts. Any ideas getting it out? It shouldn't be in very tight at all! Its flush with the valve cover, so I can't grip it with anything.

 

It is an aluminum bolt, I once did this too. I simply tapped around the outside in a CCW direction with a tiny punch and it came out.

I now have SS bolts in mine, but with those you have to be careful not to strip the threads in the valve cover.

 

Are the valve cover to cylinder head bolts aluminum as well? I can't believe it snapped, I wasn't applying any force. Definitely less than 10 ft/lbs.

 

the torque spec on those tiny breather bolts is 8 INCH pounds, as I recall - finger tight.
There are there merely to hold the cover in place while the RTV sets .....
I do not think the larger cover bolts are aluminum, but then I've ben wrong before.

 

I'm tempted to go to my local hardware store and get some different bolts, steel or something... I don't want to break any of these aluminum bolts in the head!!!

 

Try a magnet on one of the larger bolts.

 

Torque specifications. See PDF for aluminum screws. The steel screws are 7 ft-lbs.

 

Thanks Dave, so 42 inch/pounds. I wasn't even close with saying 8 in/lbs.
At any rate, 10 ft/lbs ( 120 in/lbs ) was a bit much, almost triple the torque.

 

I did not apply 10 ft pounds, not even close. And thanks for the magnet idea! I actually have some magnets I took out of a hard drive (I used them to reset my dads tire pressure sensors on his Cadillac. The bolts that go into the head are indeed steel. I am happy they are steel because my local hardware store did not have metric bolts in the length of my long ones. And I replaced the aluminum ones that go into the valve cover (for the breather cover) with stainless steel. Finger tight with the bvreather bolts, and 7 to 8 ft/lbs on the rest (the 2 long ones will also hold down the breather cover). Thanks for the help guys.

By the way, I got the broken bolt out! I used a punch to make a hole in the center of the bolt (easy since it is aluminum). Then I took a reverse drill bit (harbor Freight) and drilled the center of the bolt, hoping the bit would grab the bolt and unscrew it (advantage of using reverse drill bit). The bit never grabbed, so when I had a drilled out screw, I took my bolt extractor bits and threaded it in there and with a wrench it threaded into the bolt a bit more. Then eventually it got tight and unscrewed the broken bolt! w00t!

I made a YouTube video, not uploaded yet. I will post the link when after I upload it to help anybody else that does this. Now I know they are one time use bolts. I am not sure why they used aluminum bolts... never heard of that on a car.