Broken Bolt for impeller housing. Help!

[team airedale]

Saturday I put the boat on the water, and notice a small leak from the impeller housing. I turn the engine off, with my hand check the bolts, and to my surprise, a bolt head comes off. My guess is that when the moomba dealer replaced the impeller, they over torqued the bolts and broke one of the heads. Too bad they didn't notice it when it happened. I'm in Tulsa,OK and the boat dealer that did the service is in dallas, TX , unfortunately I can just take it back to them.

So now, the boat is on the dock/lift with a generous water leak from the impeller when the engine is running.

My question is what is the fix?
1. wd40, penetrating oil and a left hand drill bit get it out?
2. can i take the housing off and take it to a dealer, or does the boat have to go?

thanks for any help, advise, or past experience info.

roy
Moomba XLV

[maxpower220]

I believe those are brass screws that hold the cover on, so they are fairly soft. It may be faster/cheaper to drill it and use an EZ-out to remove the screw left in the housing. At worst case, you can drill it out and rethread it.
Tools= Drill, EZ out, drill bit and/or a drill bit and tap. Should probably take about an hour or so.

[warwagon]

you should be able to take the housing off then extract the threads, shouldn't be too bad of a fix.

[mmandley]

Yes shouldn't be to hard just take your time and Tap that bolt before you drill. That will help the bit not walk on you.

Lucky the head is broken off because now there is no tension on the shaft of the bolt. Striped heads are a lot harder to deal with IMO.

[Suprahunter]

There is probubly no stress on the bolt holding it in. First try to use a sharp
point punch and walk the broken bolt around counterclockwise by tapping on the edge of the broken bolt. If the threads stick out past the housing cut a slot with a hacksaw and use a screwdriver or vise grips. As a last resort drill and use an ez out. Good Luck

[team airedale]

Last night I went to Ace hardware and bought a 7/64 drill bit, a EX-2 screw extractor, a pic (to start the drill) five M5 steel cheese head bolts / at .32 cents a piece, and three york peppermint patties.

Today i went out to the boat. I took the pic and checked the depth of the holes for the impeller housing. I was puzzled for a moment because the pick was going in the dame depth on all of the holes. I then screwed in a bolt in all of the holes. And to my surprise again, the broken bit wasn't in the hole! I guess the little bit of bolt rattled it's self out when I drove the boat from the ramp and over to the dock. As I expected the foam gasket was torn, but I was able to patch it together and with the new bolts, bolted the impeller cover nice and snug. Started the engine up, and no leak to speak of!

The moral of the story is to say a little but sincere prayer before you do any boat work, and also to replace your brass hex bolts with M5 steel cheese head bolts from ace hardware ( the very helpful place).

[mmandley]

Right on man. Couldn't have worked out better for you. I like to hear a tight situation work its self out so smoothly.

[moombadaze]

one thing is there a reason the bolts are brass?

[team airedale]

one thing is there a reason the bolts are brass?

I don't know.. I do know that the steel M5 cheese head (zinc plated) bolts that I used to replace the brass with are much stronger, and more common. I first went to the a boat sales place and was charged a little over two dollars for two hex head brass bolts. I then got wise and went to Ace hardware and picked up five steel bolts for only a dollar and quarter.

[maxpower220]

one thing is there a reason the bolts are brass?

I believe it is to limit the amount of torque that you can put on the bolt, so that you don't strip out the housing. The covers are made to come on and off many times for impeller inspection/replacement.