Brake hose frame bolt snapped

[Schwifty Rich]

Alright so I was replacing my brake hose as it seemed to be the cause of my caliper sticking. l started to take everything apart but the bolt that holds the flexible rubber hose to the frame was giving me trouble. I ended up getting stripping the head of the torx bolt after only 2 attempts to turn it. I've since broken 2 bolt extractors, cut the head off the bolt, broken and dulled about 20 cobalt bits trying to drill through the extractors and bolt trying to drill it out. Well I drilled a hole alright, it just seems to be a little larger than anticipated after everything was said and done.

I'm at a loss and have emailed a couple shops to see if its something they could handle.
Perhaps re-route the metal brake line a little and make a new threaded hole is my only thought.

Has anyone else had anything like this happen?
Breaking a bolt is probably my #1 least favorite thing in the world as it makes an easy job much much much more painful.

 

[Jerry Bransford]

A pic of the issue would be good. Can you not tap the hole to accept a larger bolt and drill the brake line holder a little larger to take the new larger bolt? Worst case a quick tack-weld of the brake line holder would work too.

 

[Stockli]

Get a reverse cut drill bit
heat up the old bolt with a torch get in nice and hot then hit it with cold kroil or similar. I’d try to get it cold as I could.

Then use the reverse bit to drill it out. Most of the time the bit will catch and back the old bolt out.

 

[ohiopatriot]

Just drill a new hole and relocate with self tapping bolt.

 

[Schwifty Rich]

After much delay I am now in a position to do something about this problem.

Here are the pictures and one from the driver side.


I don’t have much confidence in my tapping ability so I’m looking to have a shop retap the hole thus making it larger.

From there I can either widen the hole for the bolt on the brake hose bracket or I could get a threaded insert and bring it back the the original size.

I would prefer the threaded insert simply so I don’t have to alter the bracket.

Ignoring the bolt hole all together I could reroute the brackets to the original positions. I would want to do the same on both sides so that would mean some real work to reroute the metal brake lines to match up with the other holes.

 

[Jerry Bransford]

That frame screw hole is meant for a sheet metal screw, not a threaded bolt. I'd just step the sheet metal screw up by one or two sizes. You could also insert a nutsert and use a bolt but it's just holding the brake line bracket on.

 

[Schwifty Rich]

If I could just drill in a self tapping screw that would be too easy! That hole is almost 3/8 when I’m looking against my drill bits and seems to be a very big size for self tapping screw.
I’m having a hard time finding the right size without digital calipers.
That said any tips for sizing, a recommended head type, etc ?

 

[Schwifty Rich]

Thanks you guys for the help, I ended up buying a few sizes of type f thread cutting screws and it worked like a charm.