stripped phillips head bolts

boomshakalaka

Over 1,000 Posts
First off, why did honda use phillips head bolts to hold their engines together? Seriously, why!?

Now that thats out of the way.. How do I fix this? Some of the screws came out fairly easily but some were already a bit stripped. I definitely made the problem worse when I tried to remove them. I went out and bought a set of screw extractors from home depot. It seemed to be working at first, but in the end they seem to have just made the problem even worse. Id really like to avoid drilling the screws out and retapping the holes. So if anyone has any suggestions, Im all ears.
 
Can you get (real) vise grips on the screw heads to crack them loose? Can you possibly use a rbetson driver to get them out? How 'bout useing a torx driver? What adout a small chisel punch and tapping the srew loose? I have a screw extractor that I bought at Canadian tire. You drill a small hole into the bolt or screw and thread the extractor in couter clockwise. They work incredibly well!
 
My mechanic use a driver tap (basically a screw driver with a chisel butt end) that you hit with a hammer and crack the screw loose.

Then buy a Torx head set-pretty and functional ;)
 
boomshakalaka said:
First off, why did honda use phillips head bolts to hold their engines together? Seriously, why!?

Now that thats out of the way.. How do I fix this? Some of the screws came out fairly easily but some were already a bit stripped. I definitely made the problem worse when I tried to remove them. I went out and bought a set of screw extractors from home depot. It seemed to be working at first, but in the end they seem to have just made the problem even worse. Id really like to avoid drilling the screws out and retapping the holes. So if anyone has any suggestions, Im all ears.

Same thing happened to me. I ended up just drilling the screw heads off (used a drill bit that was larger than the screw , but just smaller than the head). When it got far enough to get just past the screw head (VERY IMPORTANT TO PAY ATTENTION THERE!!), the head snapped off the screw. I then just slid the cover off and unscrewed the shaft of the screw without the cover on. I had to do this for 10 screws in total.....uuuggghhh. But it worked. I was able to get the covers off the engine and then the really ironic part is that the screws were able to be removed by hand...............go figure. All except for 1, which I put a set of vice grips on and it came out with very little trouble.

Good luck!!
 
thanks for all the advice guys! I did try the screw extractor thing where you drill a small hole then thread the extractor in. It lost grip and its threads tore off. In the end it just made a bigger hole!

I think Im just going to go with njsoccerguy's method and drill the head off, remove the cover, then take out the screw shafts by hand. I just need to double check to make sure there is enough shaft exposed for this method to work. I hope there is, because I really dont want to be drilling into my block and then tapping it.
 
damn those screws. i have used my MIG welder to add some material to the head of the screw then vice grip that and twist. wrks well. i also finally got an impact screw driver. now, if any screw starts to give me trouble, i pull that out and whack the end of it. works pretty well.
 
killerdwarf said:
Can you get (real) vise grips on the screw heads to crack them loose? Can you possibly use a rbetson driver to get them out? How 'bout useing a torx driver? What adout a small chisel punch and tapping the srew loose? I have a screw extractor that I bought at Canadian tire. You drill a small hole into the bolt or screw and thread the extractor in couter clockwise. They work incredibly well!

what do you mean by "real vise grips?" I know that I had a few vise grips before, but now I cant find any. I went out and bought some from autozone, but they dont seem to be of very high quality. I feel like I got far better grip with the older ones.

dcmspikes said:
damn those screws. i have used my MIG welder to add some material to the head of the screw then vice grip that and twist. wrks well. i also finally got an impact screw driver. now, if any screw starts to give me trouble, i pull that out and whack the end of it. works pretty well.

ya, that would be my approach if I had a mig welder. Maybe Ill have one for the next build?
 
craftsman makes extractors... these are NOT easyouts. they aren't cheap, but they will grab ahold of most any bolt with a hole. go to sears and buy the set!!!
 
For remaining phillips head bolts, make sure you go buy an impact driver with the right size bits - only $8 or so at most places. It is a must-have tool for removing these bolts.
 
Smoking Star said:
I used a dermal tool, and turned the screw into a flat head and then took an impact screw driver to it.
+1.. This is what I do.. But what happens if its a flush screw, that is stripped (from the impact driver), & you have very little space to get the Dremel cutting wheel in there ... like on the bloody screw that holds the tach cable into the engine case under the tank????!!!..
 
vwfye said:
craftsman makes extractors... these are NOT easyouts. they aren't cheap, but they will grab ahold of most any bolt with a hole. go to sears and buy the set!!!

worth every penny!
 
hmm, I sadly dont have a dremel. I was going to try to carefully use the angle grinder, or a drill to get the heads off then vise grip it. But maybe I should pick up a impact driver and dremel to try the flat head approach.
 
okay, i will try this again...

Step 1:
Go to Sears

Step 2:
Purchase extractor set

Step 3:
Remove stripped screws/bolts/nuts

Step 4:
Be amazed that you survived this long without them
 
vwfye said:
okay, i will try this again...

Step 1:
Go to Sears

Step 2:
Purchase extractor set

Step 3:
Remove stripped screws/bolts/nuts

Step 4:
Be amazed that you survived this long without them

I have an extractor set, it just made the head worse. I dont want to go purchase another set by a different brand just to have the same results. I plan to replace all the phillips head bolts with something else when I reassemble anyways, so I hopefully wont ever have to deal with this again.
 
As it was suggested, get an inpact screwdriver. Hit it 2 or 3 times and the screw will loosen right out.

All my 350's screws were stripped, a few hits with the hardened toolsteel bit = unstripped and loose.

Princess auto has a shitty one that'll do the job for around $10.00
 
you have an extractor set, or an 'easy out' set? the latter is a worthless tool.
 
vwfye said:
you have an extractor set, or an 'easy out' set? the latter is a worthless tool.

Ill upload a picture later. Its definitely labeled as a screw extractor kit. Its made by black and decker.
 
The black and decker set is total junk. Cracked one of those bits on the first use after 10 mins of ownership and 2 hits from a hammer.
 
That's funny. The same thing happened to me with a B&D set I got. I tried to get a rusted philips screw out of and exhaust. Followed the directions and the first time I tried it, the "teeth" just broke off. I ended up grinding the head off with a dremel. I still haven't removed the rest of it yet.
 
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