Stripped threads on pw steering bracket

[Mishakol129]

Hi guys. I'm just about ready to put my rebuilt engine back into the car when something happened. The lower right power steering bolt hole stripped out. I didn't even put much force on it, it just wanted to strip for some reason. It will tighten now but it won't torque down.

I have heard of people using this special tool to make the hole bigger and then using a bigger bolt, but if I use a bigger bolt I will probably have to make the pw steering bracket bolt hole bigger as well.


Has any ever done this to a pw steering bracket bolt hole and do you think I can run it using 3 (or 3 and 1/2) bolts?

EDIT,

Its not the Pw steering bracket its the ALTERNATOR bracket...

[Mishakol129]

Someone got an idea?

[92smokeaccord]

get a new used power steering bracket from the j yard with the bolts..shouldnt cost more than $20 and 20 mins of your time.

[Mishakol129]

get a new used power steering bracket from the j yard with the bolts..shouldnt cost more than $20 and 20 mins of your time.

That's not going to help much, what happened was the block bolt hole was stripped out.

[Mishakol129]

get a new used power steering bracket from the j yard with the bolts..shouldnt cost more than $20 and 20 mins of your time.

I'm sorry, it wasn't the power steering bracket it was the bolt hole (which is in the block) for the alternator bracket.

Do you think its safe to run the alternator with one of its (4) bolts missing?


Thank you all for you suggestions.

[Raf99]

Personally I think its safe to run with 3 bolts. The proper way to fix this of course is to re-thread the hole and use a larger bolt as you mentioned, which would also involve making the hole larger in the bracket. PITA eh...
What about the washer trick? Put some washers on the bolt so the threads grab sooner or grab on another part of the stripped hole? (i'm not sure if the whole hole is stripped where the bolt goes in or not)

[Mishakol129]

Personally I think its safe to run with 3 bolts. The proper way to fix this of course is to re-thread the hole and use a larger bolt as you mentioned, which would also involve making the hole larger in the bracket. PITA eh...
What about the washer trick? Put some washers on the bolt so the threads grab sooner or grab on another part of the stripped hole? (i'm not sure if the whole hole is stripped where the bolt goes in or not)

Thanks a lot. The washer trick doesn't work cause there's just too many threads that are stripped out.

[Mishakol129]

Personally I think its safe to run with 3 bolts. The proper way to fix this of course is to re-thread the hole and use a larger bolt as you mentioned, which would also involve making the hole larger in the bracket. PITA eh...
What about the washer trick? Put some washers on the bolt so the threads grab sooner or grab on another part of the stripped hole? (i'm not sure if the whole hole is stripped where the bolt goes in or not)

Could I use these things called helicoils? I think those are the ones you use if you don't want to use a bigger bolt... Am I correct?

Can someone illuminate me as to how these things work. They are called "inserts" and I think they are threads that you put in the bolt hole. Does anyone know where to buy them and how to use them?

[evil_demon_01]

Could I use these things called helicoils? I think those are the ones you use if you don't want to use a bigger bolt... Am I correct?

Can someone illuminate me as to how these things work. They are called "inserts" and I think they are threads that you put in the bolt hole. Does anyone know where to buy them and how to use them?

Drill the hole bigger, tap it to the helicoil thread, insert helicoil, reinstall original bolt.

Engineering shops sell them.

[Mishakol129]

I used the wrong bolt

Drill the hole bigger, tap it to the helicoil thread, insert helicoil, reinstall original bolt.

Engineering shops sell them.

I couldn't find any helocoils in 11mm so I just used a 7/16 tap instead, just like the hardware guy advised.

I found out the reason why it stripped out though, its because I used too short of a bolt. I had thought that all the bolts were the same size but they weren't.

I need to know something important. Does the power steering bracket all have the same size bolts or not? I found that one I put in was shorter than all the rest.

See pics,




Notice the short bolt. Now when I put the short bolt in the upper right bolt hole (the one with the indentation), it has enough threads like normal, but when I put it in the lower right one which was the one I stripped, there are hardly any threads. That is why I stripped it out.

See here,





This is with one of the longer 3 bolts in the upper right hole. Notice how its too long,




When I put the short one in the upper right corner it its just as much thread as the rest,




This is the short bolt in the same place that I stripped the hole out, and with one of the longer 3 in the upper right,






Okay, so there it is. But what i'd like to know now is if its really true, is there supposed to be one shorter bolt on the alternator bracket or have I lost a bolt? I thought I remembered all 4 of the bolts being the same length. Was I mistaken?

[Raf99]

to my knowledge it does go in the indented bolt hole, so they all look the same length and go the same length into the block (like your pic below). So if you had it in the wrong spot then switch it up. I guess you still have a stripped hole in the block now though to which you'll have to do what was advised in this thread.