My progress pics - LS1 intake/cam and Corvette acc swap

[Jonce]

try useing a star punch and a star socket if that don work dril and re tap

That's a good idea, never heard of that technique before. Do you think local auto parts store would carry that?

[ma.racing]

i dout it they will have the sockets if you don have them but you may have to make the punch my buddy owns a mashen shop so i get all kinda custom stuff if he wasin in afganastan i would see about letin you get it

[Jonce]

Gotcha, I wonder if I could buy a torx or star socket - grind it and use that as a punch? Well the good news is that I was able to get the balancer off, but I think the tricky part is still ahead of me. And here I thought lining up the timing dots on the sprockets would be the hardest part, go figure I got it on my second try. Tomorrow is another day, I'm heading to bed.

[ma.racing]

yea that might work just grind it down so it has a point on it and use the same size to turn it just go as deep as you can with it so you get a good gab and don just strip your hole out if you need to heat it up so you can get it deeper just don get it so hot it warps

[Jonce]

Here are some awesome pics

[ma.racing]

wow the head of that bolt looks really bad and that looks like its way up in there you may end up drillin that out just be cairfull and try not to mess your threads up that bad so you can chase them thru

[GasGuzzler]

Those are TQ to yeild bolts so they stretch out of spec after one use. You do use one to seat the balancer AFTER it's installed all the way before putting in a new one. It probably did stretch too much using it as an installer. I would center punch it right in the middle as a starrting place for a small drill bit. Then move up a little at a time until you have roughly half of it drilled out. Then use and easy out (DO NOT BREAK THE EASY OUT). If it still won't come out, keep drilling bigger until you can use a pick to walk the broken peice out. A metric tap that size might be hard to find.

[ma.racing]

good info gas i didin think about that

[Jonce]

Those are TQ to yeild bolts so they stretch out of spec after one use. You do use one to seat the balancer AFTER it's installed all the way before putting in a new one. It probably did stretch too much using it as an installer. I would center punch it right in the middle as a starrting place for a small drill bit. Then move up a little at a time until you have roughly half of it drilled out. Then use and easy out (DO NOT BREAK THE EASY OUT). If it still won't come out, keep drilling bigger until you can use a pick to walk the broken peice out. A metric tap that size might be hard to find.

Thanks for the info. I am going to try this method tonight. I'm going to see if I can find some left wound drill bits and a good set of easy outs. I need to see if I can find a thread chaser or tap/die set that will fit 16mm x 2.0 pitch. Worst case scenario - pull the engine and turn the 3 day project into a 3 week project.

[DBRODS]

I agree, I would just go straight to the drilling out method, center punch the center, start small and work your way up, and use a pick to back the threads out. Might take a few minutes longer, but you don't have to worry about trying to get a broken easyout removed too. Good luck