jltait

So I did something stupid. In trying to slow a weeping valve cover gasket I tightened the valve cover bolts a bit. Surprise surprise one of them broke in half in the process, the one closest to the oil cap. The bolt broke right below the untapped stud half of the bolt where its diameter is the smallest. Here is a picture and part number of the bolt for those not familiar with it - http://www.toyotapart.com/90080-10288.html

The valve cover gaskets obviously need to be replaced, but it's just so damn cold outside for this job. I'm waiting for warmer weather so I don't feel rushed and can avoid hypothermia.

I've never broken a bolt before, but read some horror stories both here and on ToyotaNation about this happening to others and of course went to google to find how to extract broken bolts. So here I am thinking I'm going to have to drill the damn thing out or go to a machine shop or whatever.

Crouching down to view the hole for the bolt to see just how dire things were, I noticed that the end of the bolt on these engines actually protrudes through a hole in the engine head and is visible from outside the engine itself. Now I know there's a lot of talk about how poorly these bolts were designed, not being able to properly torque them without adding countless washers etc, but with regards to buffoons like me it couldn't have been designed better. I took a small pair of pliers and simply turned the protruding bottom portion of the bolt clockwise until it fell right out of the engine head. I then got a replacement bolt for $4 from the parts dept at my local Toyota dealer and poof it was fixed! No drilling or machine shop necessary. I thought driving the car to the dealer with a valve cover bolt missing would be a bad idea, but there was no drivability issue or oil spewing anywhere so got lucky this time.

Now had the bolt been broken higher up this would not have necessarily been possible. I was lucky that it only cracked in the screw portion of the bolt. Thought I'd share my experience and fix here with anyone who may encounter a similar issue in the future.

Now on to replace that leaky valve cover gasket...

JetsonES

Lucky man! Congrats on the save, I love it when an "oh sh!+" moment turns out to be an easy fix. Thanks for sharing with the community as well, hopefully it will help someone else in their moment of despair.

Hayk

iTrader: (1)

You're incredibly lucky that you only tried doing that to the front valve cover. I started reading and was fearful that you did it in the back! Nice save and good luck with the gaskets.