Managed to get a bolt stuck in my frame. It’s an M8 ‘grub’ screw that tightens the eccentric bottom bracket on my Swift.

Story so far:

1. Rounded the Allen head on it.

2. Soaked it in 3inOne’s version of PlusGaz.

3. Tried a bolt extractor on it but it didn’t shift, just enlarged the hole

4. Started to drill it out but the bit broke

Now I’m at a loss as to what to do. I’m reluctant to do anything else myself for fear of damaging the frame.

So who do I go to next? I’m based in SW London so local would be preferable

Can you take a picture of what it looks like now?

Penetrating oil is a waste of time. You need to shock it to break the bond in the threads; take a punch or something very strong and a big hammer and tap the bolt very sharply on the head, straight downwards. It will move after that.

Hammer a good quality torx spline into it say a 3/8 drive on an extension,then, heat up the outer with a heat gun (thread part) & carefully turn it out! ,youll maybe need help to hold the frame etc, good tip here,dont use monkey metal bolts n cheap tools!

MIG or TIG weld an alan key in it. The heating will probably free the threads anyway but you’ll get a lot of leverage. Again, make sure it’s a reasonable quality key not an Ikea special!

Here’s a picture:

photo.JPG by paulfulford, on Flickr

It’s the top one. Nothing to grab with molegrips

That`ll drill and then use a splined remover easy enough. 😉

Cobalt drill & a Snapon easy out then clean it out with a tap job done,!

A decent drill bit will work – start small and work your way up until you can get an extractor in, or until you can pull the threads out like a pigs tail.
Hth
Marko

Well a happy ending! And a cautionary tale.

Took it round to a friend’s who put his bolt extractor (Easy Out) on it. Just as we were about to give up it shifted!

Then he asked how the EBB worked. Simple I said just put an Allen key in and twist. Nada, nothing, that was seized as well :(. Fortunately a little persuasion and it shifted. We pushed it out and all the grease had dried out. Think I need to add regular EBB removal to my maintenance list. Bike was new about 15 months ago and I spent 6 months of last year abroad so it only saw light use.

You might want to consider using anti-sieze compound instead of grease on the set screws and EBB hex bolts.