Suspension: Broken Subframe Bolt

[AidXC90]

Originally Posted by luggsey

Did you see what tools and bits he used for the job?
I know it caused you grief but it's really interesting!
Last bolt I snapped off was on the bearing retainer cover on my Landy.
That was a weld on nut job but was bloody hard.

I was interested to watch him too, luggsey. Since I was around I was also looking at the top of the hole, both to hold my light to help him see better and to tell him if I saw anything coming out of the hole.
He first used a larger drill bit than mine - must've been about 10 or 12 mm, then some sort of fancy reamer tool made of some sort of hard metal to grind the rest away. It had a long, thin shaft with a sort of grooved, enlarged oval bulb tip - that was very noisy indeed. Then once the remains of the bolt were thin enough he used a small metal chisel type thing to hammer between walls of the bolt and the hole and collapse the bolt in on itself. It came out pretty easily after that, or at least he made it look easy. I'll post a pic two of the bits of bolt tomorrow. Then he just tapped and 3D coiled it. Easy-peasy.