Broke bolt head on brake caliper... Suggestions?

tylerc161 said:

On the driver side, top bolt, while trying to get my brake calipers off I managed to snap the head completely off the bolt that goes through the caliper.

My first instinct is to have it drilled, my questions are:
1)once I drill it out, will I still be able to use my caliper?
1a)If I'm able to use my caliper, will I have to re-thread the entire thing?

I haven't seen a caliper off this truck before, so I'm not exactly sure where the threads are at and what pieces they're actually on, BUT; is it possible I'd be lucky enough (assuming I have to drill it out) that I can just get a slightly larger bolt with a nut on the end to keep it intact instead of paying a machine shop bookoo bucks to re-thread what ever is needed?

Click to expand...

If it's just the torque member bolt, it threads into the sliding pin. The sliding pin goes across the width of the caliper and has a dust boot on it. Just remove the sliding pin, get a new one at the dealership and a new torque member bolt. A pair of needle nose vise grips usually can grab the sliding pin. If you have to drill anything, get an easy out kit. Drill the hole smaller than the bolt diameter, and use the easy out to remove the broken end. It will save the threads. Without seeing the caliper, I'm assuming thats what you need to know. If it's worse than what you thought, then get a rebuilt caliper with new hardware. But, if you do one caliper, then do the other side too. Don't Mickey Mouse anything with the brakes, do it right.

Yeah don't sweat it. Do what he said and you should be good. These mistakes can be fixed cheap. If you drill it out you really shouldn't have to retap anything, just make sure you dig all of the old bolt out.

Better the brakes than the engine block like I just recently did.

I'm putting a new K-frame in my cavalier, and I broke one of the bolts last night that goes thru the frame into the floor boards somewhere. Kinda sucks cause I gotta try and figure out what I'm gonna do now too.

Ive been told about the Easy Out from some other friends of mine too. Personally I have no experience in them, and I heard from some others it can be difficult to use sucessfully.

I dont understand WHY the bolts were in there so damn tight that I managed to snap the head with my own strength.

I'm going to attempt the passenger side brakes today and see if they have the same stiffness problem. Although now I have Liquid Wrench to help. I'll try to get some pictures of the driver side to further detail what I'm talking about.

Thanks for the replies.