Camarofanatic90

I just bought a 5.3l with aluminum heads and it has the 2 outside bolts in one head ar broken off in head. My question is are they worth saving or are there better heads for the swap to buy relatively cheap?

JRENIGAR

iTrader: (37)

What year 5.3? What heads?

Camarofanatic90

2001 862 heads

Mike_hawk

If you decide to keep the heads, I wouldn't bother messing with those broken bolts. Since you have the engine out, take it to a welder and have them weld a nut to the broken bolt, usually they can fill the gap even if it's broken below the surface.

Camarofanatic90

ok sounds good, are they good heads to make power or are there better stock heads to be had for a reasonable price?

LLLosingit

iTrader: (4)

Since the motor is already out it should be pretty easy to remove the broken bolts from the heads. What I do is grind the portion of the bolt sticking out flat and center punch it and drill it out starting with a small bit and working up to the point that the bolt is so thin that I can use small chisel collapse it. If the bolt is flush or inset try to use the punch as usual (sometimes it helps) being careful to keep the drill bit centered and drill as I posted above. There are a few tricks you can use to make sure you don't drill to far, In this case I would stick the drill bit into one of the good holes and mark it where it bottoms out then put tape around the marked spot to use as a depth gauge.
If this isn't something you think you can do yourself take the whole engine to the machine shop and let them do it. They should be able to remove them fairly quickly.

brandon6.0

iTrader: (32)

Done it over twenty times. Weld a nut onto it and while it's cherry red and hot it will back right out every time. The weld will not stick to the aluminum. Works great!

waddiejohn

I use a center drill to get things started. They are much easier to control and to guide in order to maintain the exact center of the bolt you are trying to drill out. Once you have a nice counter sink started you can switch to a standard drill of a small diameter then step up in size until all that is left is the threaded portion that you can pull out with needle nose pliers.

waddiejohn

I use a center drill to get things started. They are much easier to control and to guide in order to maintain the exact center of the bolt you are trying to drill out. Once you have a nice counter sink started you can switch to a standard drill of a small diameter then step up in size until all that is left is the threaded portion that you can pull out with needle nose pliers. Once you have a good hole in the bolt an easy out might work also.
One other thing that most of use don't have is left handed drill bits. If you can pick up one it may bite well enough to just unscrew the bolt for you.