I was going to put the timing cover on "by the book" at 7 ft. #'s with a torque wrench. Apparently, my TW is WAY off because it snapped the 30 year old bolt. How bad of an oil leak can I expect by not tapping this back out and leaving it minus one bolt? I've pulled motors before that were missing a bolt or two on the cover that didn't seem to leak. Help me out guys.

I had one break off once, just covered the area over the broken bolt with Permatex, no trouble.

One bolt won't hurt anything.

Thanks guys. Rob, I need to keep you on my speed dial for these problems. LOL You always take the time to help me and everyone else on the board. I appreciate it.

You should be able to drill it and remove it fairly easily. You will need a small drill bit and a small easy-out. The bolt should come out without too much trouble at all once you start to drill it. You should only need to go in about 1/8" before your easy out works on it.

I had something similar happen, I set my wrench to 14 ft lbs instead of inch pounds and it took the head right off. I was able to use a hammer and chisel to back the bolt out of the hole. No need to drill or retap. http://www.nastyz28.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

Ive explained this in previous posts before, but if you cant get it out and you wanna try to get it out.. try this

Borrow a portable welder, get some 5/16 or so nuts and weld the nut the the portion of the bolt thats still in the block being careful not to weld the threads of the block.. let it completly cool (Normally, no water or lube) and then spray it with penetrating lube, take a wrench and just wiggle it back and forth till it comes out.. it should come out fairly easy as it probably was not bottomed out (the hard ones are the ones that are bottomed out).. Just take your time and it should pull out easily... Nate

BTW, we do this to all the trucks where i work, The ford 460s are known for the exhaust studs breaking when we go to change manifolds, this is the only way we have been able to get the broken studs out...