[snid]

After over a week of waiting to get my rear swaybar installed, I finally went at it today. Almost everything went fine...

When it came time to put the car back together, and I was torquing the bolts for the upper top hat of the rear spring, it all went wrong. I was using a torque wrench and following the specs from the www.outmotoring.com how-to, and one of the bolts failed. And, of course, it sheared so that there was nothing sticking out of the hole to grab onto. So, time to attempt to drill the broken bolt out. That didn't work... using the right tools, I was only able to get the bolt to back out maybe a quarter of a turn. Then it just seemed to eat up the metal of the bolt, not grab hold and back the bolt out.

For now, I've declared that one bolt "non-critical" and put the rest back together, and am driving very easily for now. Time to look for a professional to see if they can help me out. Of course, it's a long holiday weekend, and my MINI is headed for the body shop on Tuesday to get some parking-lot dents removed. Who knows when it will get resolved. I just hope I haven't screwed thing up too badly already.

[GBMINI]

Jason,
Are you determined to drive the Marshmallow again this year?

I cannot believe your un-luck ... you are John Effinger must be in competition ...


PS:
My only "assistance" help is that if I was in a similar situation, I would get my colleague Christian to help me

[jcsinnh]

Oy, Jason What bad luck! Hope you can get it fixed soon.

[GBMINI]

Jason,
You have a "twin" on NorthAmericanMotoring ...

[snid]

Ian, thanks for the link to NAM, I don't check them out too often. Interesting to see that there was a recall on those bolts for a small build window (9/25/02 to 11/15/02). My MINI was built in the first week of September 02. I didn't get a recall notice, maybe I should have.

I was thinking I'd try to find a local auto place that was open tomorrow to get them to try to get the bolt out and throw a new one in, perhaps I should wait and see MINI of Peabody after all. But, with my body shop appointment scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, that means I wouldn't get it looked at until Thursday. Or, reschedule the body shop.

[GadgetGav]

Wow, that's bad luck Jason.
Did you try using the next size up X-Out (or whatever you're using to get the sheared one out..? The other trick to try is drilling and tapping a left handed thread into it, but you probably don't have ready access to those tools.
If you're covered by the recall, at least you can get a whole set of replacements, but that doesn't help right now. Maybe I should get back under my car and check all mine... I picked my car up in Dec 02...
I'd suggest rescheduling the body shop... to after MOT! Put the car away when it's fixed and don't get it out until the 18th, even if you have to walk to work..!

[MGB Boy]

Reading about your adventure in automotive upgrade hell is giving me nasty flashbacks to the 2+ years I spend tearing apart and putting back together my 77 MGB. Sheared bolts, stripped threads, captive nuts unmounting and falling into unreachable body panel areas... It took a couple full years for all the skin to grow back on my hands, I swear. At times, you really begin to believe that this inanimate piece of metal is actually trying to you off.

Regardless, I'm sure any of the local garages would be more than happy to take that bad boy out, for a fee of course. And they probably won't be open until Tuesday, when you're supposed to be going to the body shop. The guys at Auto (rhymes with -master) are more likely than anyone to have a suitable replacement part, being a BMW dealer (presuming there's anything special about the part, unless it's just a generic standard size bolt, in which case you could go anywhere). They won't make it cheap though, knowing them...

-Ricardo

[Windshadow]

these are worth their weight in gold in my machine shop if they wont shift it the only thing left is EDM!
http://www.newmantools.com/drillout/how2.htm

[snid]

All has been resolved. I had a local mechanic (wheel / tire / suspension place) finish the job of drilling out the broken bolt. Then, I bought three more replacement bolts and took out the other over-torqued bolts and replaced them with new, high-grade bolts, torqued to 56nm as suggested by Randy in another thread.