Rep Power: 0

Replacing my front brakes yesterday with new Hawk pads. No big deal, should take a couple hours at most. Everything came apart fine, rotors are in good shape. Passenger side goes together fine. Using a torque wrench to tighten the last bolt to fasten the caliper, with the wrench set to 40ft-lbs, I swear that **** NEVER clicked, and the damn bolt snapped off.

Break out the drill and extractor, and the EXTRACTOR breaks in the bolt. WTF!?!

That extractor is hard as HELL, and drilling it isn't doing a damn thing other than making a small indentation. I don't have any welding equipment. What are my options? Going to try to drill it out again, but I guess otherwise I'm looking at replacing the entire caliper assembly?

Nothing is ever easy! Even the seemingly simple jobs seem to turn into a nightmare...no pun intended, considering it was Halloween.

 
Rep Power: 0

Luckily, the Auto Warehouse had a brake front caliper assembly for $20. Now I'm pissed I spent so much time and energy trying to drill the damn thing out in the first place! Replaced the caliper bracket and all is well.

 
Rep Power: 0

wow good to hear =) hope that doesnt happen to me today replacing my rotors and pads

 
Rep Power: 0

SOMEDAY I'll have to figure out a way to extract a broken bolt that actually WORKS. Had this not been an easily replaceable part, I don't know what I would have done. I'd probably still be drilling and breaking bits.

I actually figured out WHY the bolt broke in the first place, although I hate to admit it. Newbie mistake that I'm SURE I'm not the first to have made, and I'll be sure to never make again.

 
Rep Power: 812

did you tighten instead of loosen?

 
Rep Power: 0

Ha ha...Fortunately, I'm not THAT new!! No, it was a misreading of torque requirements and parts description in the Haynes manual. I was reading the specs for the wrong part. That coupled with having no idea just HOW tight 40lbs is compared to 20lbs of torque (with my JUST purchased torque wrench) led to disaster. Next time I'll know that when something says over 30 lbs, to check the spec twice. I got lucky this time with an easily replaceable part!

 
Rep Power: 254

Slide pins don't get very tight, next time you can try a machine shop to remove the broken bolt. Maybe for a decent price they can do it.