All I wanted to do...

[Altitude]

...was take out my seats so I could lay down some sound deadening material. I was so looking forward to getting that done this weekend until I ran into the BOLT FROM HELL.

It's a passenger side seat bolt on the seat rail closest to the door. All of the other bolts came out just fine except for this mf'n one. I swear that feckin thing must be welded in. Ok - I've run into this before - there's lots of things I can try. Gotta rule out PB or any sort of loosening spray because I can't get to the threads... fair enough.

Lemme try a smaller sized socket. No go. Ok - I can dremel down the sides and make some nice flat surfaces to grab onto. Nope, try again. Hmm... maybe I can slot the thing and get it out with a large screwdriver bit - hell no the metal on the head is too soft and the bit just fucks up the slot. Vice grips? Ha! Try again.

Wait - they make all sorts of cool doo-dads designed to get out rounded off bolts! Off to the store I run and buy a bunch of these miracle workers...none of them work. Ok, now the head is so fucked up that it's useless.

Time to dremel off the flange so I can at least get the seat out of the fecking way and then I'll be able to drill that bitch out. So I run through about three cut-off wheels and I can't get enough of the head flange off to be able to lift the damned seat out. The working space is terrible, the fact that the bolt sits in a recess makes it nearly impossible to get a good angle on the fecking thing. I can't even get at the bolt from the backside to flaten the sides to fit a socket!!!

What kind of shit soft metal are these bolts made of anyway?!? Everything I try just shaves off more metal. Here I sit with a massively cut up bolt - two days wasted trying to get the fecking thing out and no closer to success than when I started. Ain't that a bitch. I think I need a torch to cut the fecking thing out, but that would probably just set the interior on fire.

If I haven't tried something that one of you knows works well then please let me know. I give up for today and probably for about a week until I can tackle it again. I'm fucking pissed!!!! :mad::mad::mad:

Thanks for letting me vent.

[ChinoCharles]

^^ Me too. :laugh:

Lefty loosey dude!

[firebob]

Lefty loosey dude!

+1
Cut the bolt head into as many peaces as you can and then rip and chisel what is left of the bolt head out.

[ChinoCharles]

Honestly, I say leverage. Put a longer lever on that wrench.

[cali yaris]

You said "socket" -- but aren't those starz bolts (or whatever they are called)? Are you using the appropriate socket to grab those? It's a special one.

[Altitude]

:rolleyes: This didn't happen because I was turning it the wrong way.

I think some factory worker was OD'd on roids when he was torquing that fucking bolt.

I tried cold chiseling that fucker too. It won't budge. Anywho, I plan to provide pics of the carnage once I get the bastard out. Stay tuned.

Edit - Cali - yes they require torx sockets and I have the right one - like I said the other bolts came out easy.

[ChinoCharles]

I was only messin Altitude... I didn't think you were turning it the wrong way. :laugh:

Jackhammer + Yaris + video camera = WIN!

[Altitude]

I was only messin Altitude... I didn't think you were turning it the wrong way. :laugh:

Jackhammer + Yaris + video camera = WIN!

It's cool - I'm not offended and I figured as much.

I'm gonna make that bolt my bitch - it's personal now.

[ChinoCharles]

Please tape this.

[Altitude]

I know I said I was going to wait - but I couldn't go to sleep tonight knowing that bolt was out in the garage mocking me and I swear I heard it laughing when I was writing the first post. So.....

Victory is mine! I gave up trying to take off the flange and gave one of those 'Bolt-Out' tools one more shot. So I ground down the bolt head (what was left of it) and tried one more time. Now I don't know if it was all the cursing, the heat from the grinding or just that the bolt decided it had had enough of my tough love, but this time it came out easier than all those before it. Go figure.

Sorry I didn't get to video the whole ordeal. It was quite the light show with sparks flying and shit getting in my eyes (yes I was wearing safety glasses but they made my vision like looking through a fishbowl so I had to take them off.) Anyhow - I snapped some pics to document the epic struggle.

...

This is a picture of the type of bolt used to hold down the seats in a Yaris.

http://dlaporte.powweb.com/Bolt/CIMG0164.JPG


This is a picture of the Torx Socket used to remove them.

http://dlaporte.powweb.com/Bolt/CIMG0162.JPG

This is a picture of the tools I used to extract the BOLT FROM HELL. Most of them didn't help, but I was desperate.

http://dlaporte.powweb.com/Bolt/CIMG0159.JPG

This is a picture of the mess it made. I was was real careful not to mess up the seat rail at first. Then I just said fuck it, a little paint and it'll be good as new. Besides I even contemplated hacking off the foot of the rail and buying a new one... That little tool you see to the right of it is the one that did the trick. It's tapered inside and has some 'cutting teeth' to grip the head.

http://dlaporte.powweb.com/Bolt/CIMG0149.JPG

It's not easy working with a Dremel in such close quarters as shown here.

http://dlaporte.powweb.com/Bolt/CIMG0161.JPG

These are some things that got broken in the process. Just some plastic bits from the end cap of the seat rail and a piece of broken cut-off wheel from the Dremel - there's a few more pieces of those somewhere inside the Yaris - but at least they didn't end up in my eye.

http://dlaporte.powweb.com/Bolt/CIMG0168.JPG

Here's a pic of the offending bolt after I had my way with it. Take that bitch!

http://dlaporte.powweb.com/Bolt/CIMG0170.JPG


Oh, if anyone is interested in having their seats removed, I'd be glad to help. :biggrin:

[Shroomster]

...no pics showing up.....

[Snyprwlf47]

Please fix pics...The suspense is killing me. It reminds me of the oil filter I had that I bent a pry bar in an attempt to remove.

[eTiMaGo]

tried to fix the pictures but the original attachments are no longer there?

[Phaeton]

Maybe somebody put a couple drops of locktite on the the bolt after they cross-threaded it at the manufacturing plant.

[Shroomster]

pics are good now....

didja ever think to try some pb blaster or other lubricant at all during this ordeal....?

[firemachine69]

:rolleyes: This didn't happen because I was turning it the wrong way.

I think some factory worker was OD'd on roids when he was torquing that fucking bolt.

I tried cold chiseling that fucker too. It won't budge. Anywho, I plan to provide pics of the carnage once I get the bastard out. Stay tuned.

Edit - Cali - yes they require torx sockets and I have the right one - like I said the other bolts came out easy.



Impact hammer on the head (or what remains). Drill through the rest without contacting the threads.

[Altitude]

pics are good now....

didja ever think to try some pb blaster or other lubricant at all during this ordeal....?

I mentioned that in the original post.

The thing just wouldn't budge and I ended up stripping the head so I could no longer grip it - hence the fiasco. If this had been a standard bolt with a flush surface and easy access it wouldn't have been nearly as difficult as it was. Once I got it out it didn't seem as though it was cross threaded or anything like that. I think I just was unfortunate to have a bad bolt. Maybe some impurities in the metal during casting because it stripped pretty easily and the others seemed to take the torque much better and showed no signs of weakness.

[enobmort42]

wow.. Sounds like something I'd run into, and I don't have half the tools you do!

[firemachine69]

I have all those tools, minus the "Gator-Grip". Biggest tool scam ever created.

[Shroomster]

I mentioned that in the original post.

The thing just wouldn't budge and I ended up stripping the head so I could no longer grip it - hence the fiasco.


BLASPHEMY!!!!! <<lol

pb and the other lubes (wd-40, etc) actually will seep down to the threads...but whatever...



the deed has been done and you have been victorious....

[Spades]

next time you hit a bolt that wont budge, before you round it out...just grab a propane torch, cutting torch, or a powerfull butane micro torch. get that sombeech almost red hot, then grab your wrench or socket, get some good leverage, and POP...that technique i have used for years...on much more offensive materials like exhaust studs and bolts that have been rusted and heated on for 20+ years.

if you want the sucker to snap if you are planning on cutting it out anyway, you might as well buy a can of CRC freeze or equivalent can of bolt freezing goodness.

personally, i would have just hit it with heat and a long breaker bar...if you hit it with some heat and alot of leverage BEFORE it gets rounded, most stuff will break free.

[YarisSedan]

next time you hit a bolt that wont budge, before you round it out...just grab a propane torch, cutting torch, or a powerfull butane micro torch. get that sombeech almost red hot, then grab your wrench or socket, get some good leverage, and POP...that technique i have used for years...on much more offensive materials like exhaust studs and bolts that have been rusted and heated on for 20+ years.

if you want the sucker to snap if you are planning on cutting it out anyway, you might as well buy a can of CRC freeze or equivalent can of bolt freezing goodness.

personally, i would have just hit it with heat and a long breaker bar...if you hit it with some heat and alot of leverage BEFORE it gets rounded, most stuff will break free.

Same trick i use a lot too but i dont think he could use a torque in that close a area without catching the carpet on fire lol. Then it could really be called the bolt from hell as it burns everything around it to the ground.

[Spades]

Same trick i use a lot too but i dont think he could use a torque in that close a area without catching the carpet on fire lol. Then it could really be called the bolt from hell as it burns everything around it to the ground.

if you are using a small butane torch you could heat the bolt up to a pretty high temp before that carpet would combust...and there still is the freeze method if you are going to have to do things the hard way and cut it out anyway.

also, if you use a penetrating lubricant (there are dozens of products out there that all do the same thing) around the base of the bolt, it would have seeped down, because the bolt has those locking tabs that keep the sucker from accidentally comming out, it also means its not a perfectly flat surface, so it has gaps in the seal of bolt head to seat bracket...meaning a penetrating lube could squeak down to the threads, and also make the opposing teeth on the head of the bolt less effective.

i would have just swabbed a couple rags around the bracket to ensure that the lube didnt get to the carpet, then filled the seat bracket divot with a lightweight penetrating oil, and let it soak in a couple hours.

if i couldnt get it out with a 18"+ breaker bar, i would hit it with a bolt freeze product if i planned on having to chop it up anyway.

P.S. the easy out sockets with the little teeth he has pictured dont work for @#$% in my experience. there are some mechanics grade kits that use a tap to basically thread a snapped off bolt or rounded head so that when you go counter clockwise, it threads a special bit on tighter. these kits work well, but for a quality kit you will pay out the nose.