Stripped Bolt Removal

Hi, I'm Bob LaRosa. Welcome to Fix My Hog. Let's take a look at Allen's or any type of hardware. When the bolt itself, the allocation in the head of the bolt is stripped out. As you can see this outer primary cover the "derby cover" got dragged along the pavement somewhere. Somehow, I wanna save the outer primary but I wanna remove the derby cover backing plate and the hardware itself. Someone either used the wrong size Allen or over tightened them and stripped them. The Allen itself will just spin freely in the head before I go and take a new Allen style bit and try driving it in and make the Allen the hex configuration correct again, but in a larger size. What I typically do is use a Torx bit. And I don't like to use my good quality Torx bits to hammer 'em into a stripped allocation. I typically buy a decent quality, but a cheaper brand than what tools I typically use. It's a very simple process. What you wanna do is start, obviously anytime you're gonna strike any hardened surface you need safety glasses. I'm just gonna start the Torx bit into the head of the bolt. I'm gonna make sure it starts nice and straight and square. I'm gonna use a smaller ball peen to get it started. Then I'm gonna use a larger hammer something with some weight behind it just to drive that Torx bit down into the cover. Once I'm comfortable with how far the depth or the engagement of the Torx bit is into the stripped head I can then use, what's known as a hand impact make sure it's in the right direction. And the important part of this is your first swing, is the most critical the most important swing, you wanna sneak up on it and you wanna hit it hard so that it jars it loose. If you go in and you try and tap it chances are you're never gonna get loose. Safety glasses are very important. You wanna get a good handle on the tool and the bit, if you're not comfortable with the cover being on the work surface make sure a second set of hands holds it down. But the key is to really sneak up on it heavy swing and get that bolt to break free. As you can see one shot of the hammer and that bolt came loose. The Torx itself is embedded into the head of the bolt. So you're gonna wanna rocket gently back and forth in order to get it out of the bowl. But the key is, I didn't break the bit and I did get the bolt out of the cover. Again, it's as simple as safety glasses, a Torx bit that's one size larger than the stripped hole and you wanna tap it into place. Nice and squaring straight, make sure it's driving into the head of the bolt. Give it a nice wrap with the larger hammer and then use the hand impact. And again, the only swing that counts is the first swing. You wanna get a good firm grip on the tool and hit it hard. You'll find nine out of ten times that bolts come free. And what you did, you saved yourself a lot of aggravation by not having to drill it out or just discard the entire component because it can't be reused. Another quick tip, never try to remove the stripped headed bolt from the bit unless it's threaded in. And never strike the tool or the bit once it's loose, chances are, if you strike it you'll destroy the threads in the component you're trying to save. All you need to do is just gently rocket back and forth and you'll see it'll eventually wanna work itself right out of there. And then you can remove it in its entirety and you'll do that same procedure as many times as necessary on as many different styles and sizes of fasteners as need be. The key is to have a Torx bit that is one size larger than the Allen allocation in the head of the bowl.