I'm doing my rear pads and rotors, and one of the factory-installed rotor screws is simply not budging... I've tried heat, I've tried PB Blaster, I tried tightening and then loosening, I went out and bought a manual impact driver, but nothing's working!

I know that some people have drilled them out, but is there anything else I can do? Should I get a better impact driver than the one I got from AutoZone?

If I do have to drill it out, what exactly does that mean? Does that mean to use one of those things that you use when a bolt is stripped?

Any help is appreciated; thanks in advance!

 

I had this on my r56. Basically you have to beat the **** out of it. I used tons of blaster. Heated with a torch. Banged it with a manual impact and a 5 pound hammer.

I think in the end I used an easy out and drilled it and then inserted the reverse thread bit and torqued it out.

ugh.

 

If you have access to a MIG/TIG welder I know what would work. Take a washer and weld it to the top of the torx screw. Then weld a nut to the washer. All that heat will break the bond and the added torque of a wrench on the nut will back it out. This trick has been used successfully with broken head studs on vintage engine blocks.

 

Heat it and hit it with an impact. That is how we do it in the shop. At worse use a hammer and chisel to turn it out.

 

Just went through something similar myself after the winter.
Tons of PB blaster + Heat + brute force carried the day.

Standalone brute force was applied via impact wrench to no avail, then the hand impact driver matted to torx socket and married to a 5 lb sledge hammer did the rest:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PROTO-J7099A-Impact-Driver-and-Bit-Set-3-8In-Dr-13-Pc-/381008708292?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item58b5e382c4
One side was particularly stubborn, and required 4 or 5 cycles of PB blaster soaking and impact driver motivation.

Afterwards, I found the threads for the rotor set screw encrusted with rust, resisting insertion of the new screw. Ended up chasing them with M10 SnapOn thread chasing bit:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Snap-on-48-Piece-SAE-And-Metric-Thread-Restorer-/111634472484?hash=item19fdeede24&item=111634472484&vxp=mtr
Then apply plenty of anty-seize on the new bolt, and hand tighten it (it doesn't do much other than keep rotor from wiggling while you work on pads).

a

 

Thanks for all the suggestions, guys... I guess I'll keep at it with more PB, heat, and impact...

 

Same problem a few days ago. I used a long socket that matched the diameter of the scew head .... Held it against the screw head and beat the hell out of it with a hammer. After several beatings it finally came loose with my 18v impact.

 

My local old-school garage (you know, oil stains on every seat and none of that coffee machine nonsense - it's a garage) kindly swapped the pads and rotors I had tried to fit myself to the front of my Roadster. And he didn't even gouge me like I felt he should have! He proudly showed me his second attempt at getting one rotor screw out which required welding a 1/2" nut to it, after the weld to a 3/8" nut sheared off, and a big breaker bar.

The guy hase ben working on cars since they were powered by steam and reckons it was the most difficult rotor screw he had encountered. I had thought about slicing a screwdriver slot in the head of the screw with a thin cutting disc, since I was replacing the rotors anyway, but I was glad I didn't as the usual advice to remove the screw head and then wind out the shank with mole grips after the disc is off wouldn't have worked.

So I wish you the best of luck and I hope you are more of a man than me...

I think I will add removing the rotor screws and applying copper grease to them as part of the job of switching from summer to winter wheels and vice versa.

 

Yes, an ounce of prevention is a good idea. Every spring and fall, when I change to sunner and winter tires, I back out those screws, just to keep them from seizing. I have never had a problem.

 

This happened to me once on a different car and I just drilled it out. Took about 2 minutes.

 

Impact gun is the only way I got mine out.

 

I used an easy out and that thing broke! Now what do I do? I'm thinking that now I have to cut the rotor off somehow.

 

Dude I feel for ya ..I'm about to do this to mine and am following this thread to see how you make out. Can't you just drill it out? I know you said the easy out broke , did it break in the thread?

 

I drilled to get the easy put one there and the piece of junk snapped off. Yes, it broke off in the the thread. Of course, it was the last one. The other three had come out very easy.

 

Every ez-out I ever used broke and made the job 10x harder.

 

There's always a kink in any job .....you are replacing rotors right! so can u drill out or try to bore out a bigger hole around it to just take the rotor off and try to then remove stem with rotor off? I know it sounds easier said than done but if you could drill through rotor or as suggested make relief cuts around screw to be able to pull rotor off then you could use a clamping wrench to get the stem out. I don't know what tools you have ..not many of us can weld (if we have access to) a nut to the stem to remove. Sorry if I'm not much help ...

 

I used heat, PB Blaster, hand impact, etc. nothing worked on one of my screws. Ended up using cobalt (not Kobalt, although they have a line of cobalt bits) and drilled the thing out. Just did it yesterday as a matter of fact. The other three came out with Blaster and hand impact wrench. Used a *ton* of anti-seize when I replaced the other three. Why the h#*! folks don't properly use easily available lubricants and compounds when installing stuff is beyond me.

 

take a look here

 

No need to cut the rotor.

Just remove enough of the screw's head to prevent it from keeping the old rotor in place, and the rotor will come off. Then you are left with the challenge of either taking out the remnants of the old screw (grip the remnants, PB blaster + turn, or drill the rest out), or leaving it in place and moving on without one (perfectly fine).

For anyone reading this threads who is contemplating a rotor job - the above horror stories happen 2% of the time, usually with cars from the snow belt. The other 98% of the time the screw comes out just fine and the job is VERY straight forward.

a

 

Correct afadeev, I have seen in many cases where they haven't gotten the screw out(but enough of it to get the new rotor on) and as has been said it (the screw)is only for the rotor to stay in place when mounting....you can still use the bolts for the wheels to hold all in place and get your wheel on! Since they go through wheel and into new rotor/hub.
Hope it all works out ..please let us know how it turns out.

 

Hey guys, thanks again for all the great info! I'm happy to report that the screw was removed, and I wanted to share how I did it in case this is helpful to anyone else...


After many failed attempts using heat, PB blaster, and beating the hell out of it with an impact driver, I did two things (and I don't know which of these did the trick, perhaps it was a combination): (1) I applied a liberal dose of PB Blaster to both the front and back, 5 or 6 times, over the course of hours, and let it sit overnight; and (2) I stabilized the rotor by inserting one of the lug bolts at the "9 o'clock" position and then placed a properly-sized 2x4 between it and the floor (see pic below). I then used a regular socket wrench with a T-50 bit, and it started turning as if there were never any problem!





@son-of-mini: Great idea to back out the screw every spring and fall when you switch over your tires... I'm adding that to my routine, and in fact, just did it today to both cars! I'm committed to never letting this happen again...


Thanks again, everyone!

 

arb63.....Excellent news! Very happy to hear you are done with that!