Was wondering when something would happen, Jeep has been way too easy to work on.
When attempting to remove the T-stat housing, the upper bolt sheared at the head. The bolt spins with the housing so in my wisdom I removed the water pump to spin the whole assembly off, sounded legit, but the T-stat **** blocked my idea. I've read online about people drilling out the bolt, which sounds like a lot of work. Can the housing just be cut off at the bolt area? It sounds much easier to sacrifice the ~$15 housing than to remove the entire grill area to drill.



I've already sprayed it with penetrating fluid, tried a wedge, this thing is stuck to the bolt threads pretty good.

 

Not in the mood to screw around with this thing, it met a quick death and I moved on.

 

Wow. Not even 2 hours. I applaud you sir.

 

Thanks, I've learned that sometimes it feels much better to destroy an easily replaceable part than to dick with something till you are clinically insane.

 

I'd be tempted to use a bit on anti seize on that bolt shank to prevent that 15 years from now!

 

I did when I did my thermostat.

 

Anti-seize, and I've read that some RTV works as well. I'll be using something To avoid this in the future.

 

I'm pretty sure I do this almost every time I work on my Jeep. She shudders in fear when I break out the angle grinder.

 

Agree with the above. Your time and frustration is typically worth more than the destroyed part.

 

Funny and true. Good for you getting it fixed so quickly.

 

Happened to me couple of weeks ago, I took a cold chisel to it and split the housing where the bolt was.

 

Wait am I not seeing the point of this? Don't the bolts go all the way through, couldn't you pull the housing off and just use vice grips on the the part that's left?

 

sometimes the bolt is galvanized to the housing due to corrosion reaction between aluminum and steel. The head of the bolt breaks off but the stub remaining is not rusted to the head. It is free but u can't get it out because it's stuck to the housing

 

Ahhhhh I see now, makes way more sense. I was reading the thread and replies and was confused. That's like breaking the head off a head bolt and angle-grinding the cylinder head to get to it instead of lifting it off. But the metals being fused makes sense why they get stuck now.

 

Man that sucks. I had the same thing happen to me. Sat in front of the Jeep drilling an "easy out" into it for 2 days before I got it out