Ouch... snapped bolts

[chimpboy]

I snapped two of the loooong bolts that hold the water pump against the front casing on the Rover V8, these ones go through that front casing and into the block itself. 1/2" head, I guess a 5/16" thread without checking carefully.

By "front casing" I mean the cast ally thing that has the distributor and oil filter bolted to it, sitting between the block and the water pump. What I want to know is, is there a lot of timing and other stuff in between there that is going to make it a nightmare to remove, or is it relatively painless to take it off so I can get those snapped off bits of bolt out of the block? Ie is it just a cover with some oil and water channels in it or is it mechanically important, if you get what I mean? Because if it's too fiddly I am tempted to just bodgy it back together without fixing the snapped bolts.

I'm annoyed! Didn't want to pull it off at all.

[firey69]

if your mechanical minded you can take the timing cover off without to many problems. behind the cover is just basicly your timing gear and chain nothing really the biggest hassle is retiming it but if you mark the rotor button dissy housing and a fixed point on the engine to put it back in to shouldnt have any problems

[chimpboy]

Thanks, that's cool. I mainly wanted to be sure that there aren't any surprises behind there like... you know, take off that cover and 30 different springs and ballbearings go flying out and can't be put back in, or something

If it's just the usual level of fiddling that's okay, better to do it right and make sure the bolts go back in with antiseize this time.

[firey69]

yeah theres nothing like that mate

[chimpboy]

Got it off today; still haven't got the snapped ends out but that should be okay.

Funny, the two snapped bolts are corroded (obviously) and so are the two identical ones that didn't snap. But all the other bolts are clean and uncorroded. They have different markings. The corroded ones are just marked UNC while the good ones are marked SRO (or OSR or ROS depending on where you start reading).

Anyway, just thought that was interesting.

[firey69]

thats fairly common mate im not sure how your pump was fitted but some people dont silicone both sides of the gasket on the pump and water gets in round the bolt holes and sits causing exactly whats happened to yours just make sure you silicone the gasket both sides when you reassemble it mate

[bigbad]

some of those bolts also go into the water jacket in the block, I usually put some thread sealer on the threads before fitting those.

[chimpboy]

I checked that and the bolts in question 100% do NOT go into the water jacket. They are NEAR the water jacket so I think it's the first suggestion that's right, the gasket did not seal near the bolts for whatever reason and the bolts were in a permanent moist environment.

That's the verdict from CSI: Rovers.

I am also sure that there is a difference in the metallurgy of the bolts themselves though, they are clearly from a different manufacturer to the ones that didn't corrode.

Is there any reason I shouldn't go stainless when I replace them?

[firey69]

cant see any reason why you couldnt im not aware of any bad reaction between alloy and stainless but personally i wouldnt bother ive got about 70 of them laying round the shed

[chimpboy]

Ouch... snapped ezy-out!

Got "The Thread Doctor" coming out to just fix these farkers. I will spend my time on work I enjoy more than trying to sort this particular problem.

[Euan]

when stainless hardware is mated against ally it increases the corrosion rate of the ally, unless you use a jointing compound full of chromate(s) like duralac or mastinox, to stop the flow of electrons.