I cracked 2 of the timing cover bolts inside the block, i drilled one out already, but the second one when i tried drilling it out i cracked the drill bit inside the block...

WHAT DO I DO?????

 

any help on this pleaseeeeeeeeeeeee

 

Go to the hardware store and get a Titanium or Cobalt drill bit. You'll need a bit that hard to drill out the pre existing piece of bit. Install a helicoil in the hole you chewed out. The hole may not line back up perfectly so you may need to slightly enlarge the coresponding hole in the timing cover to get it back on.

 

I would do what the above poster said but instead of a heli coil use a tap. You dont need to put a lot of torque on those bolts and a heli coil isn't necessary given the tap is clean.

 

the hole is kinda flat, no threads left in it, so would i use a helicoil or not?

 

Also does anyone know the bolt and thread size of the timing cover bolts

 

I would try getting away with the tap first and test a bolt and see if it holds it snug, if not use a heli coil. A heli coil usually requires you drill the hole bigger. A tap ios usually strong. To give you an idea my transmission crossmembers bolts actually got stripped because my new lt1 ripped the damn bolts out of it. No threads left. I used a tap on 2 of the holes that got pulled and it held up to some 2500 rpm launches. I don't know the bolt size but go to a place like lowes and bring your bolt, they usually have a thread gauge where you can try to thread the bolt in and it will have the size displayed. Try the tap, then a heli coil if necessary.

 

1/4-20

Be more careful!

 

How the hell did you snap these. Tighten much?

 

Sometimes those are just weak. I broke one on my car barely twisting a 1/4 wratchet. I also managed to break one in ibanez6rg car helping him with a cam swap, but at least that one i was putting some pressure onto it. My timing cover is now filled with grade 8 bolts, lol.

 

There is a misprint in the Book "How To Rebuild Small Block Chevy LT-1/LT-4 Engines" by HPBooks on page 163. In the picture it says "Torque the timing cover bolts to 106 ft-lbs.

However this seemed really odd to me and I checked page 149 the 3rd paragraph down under the heading "Installing the front cover" They say to install at 106 in-lbs. Which equates to basically 9 ft-lbs. So it could easily be done if you were looking at the pictures and in a rush rather than slowing down for a second and thinking.

I contacted the publisher about this mistake, but I doubt they will change it.

The timing cover bolts are 1/4" x 20 x 1 3/8".
The optispark bolts are the same thread count but they are 2"s long instead of 1 3/8".

 

I would hope that anyone would quickly figure out (before applying torque) that the little bolts would not be 106 lb. ft.

 

Agreed!

 

I mentioned the helicoil because I assumed he would mangle the hole trying to drill out the piece of drill bit that broke off. If all went well then yes, I would just run a tap to clean out the threads. It would'nt hurt to chase the threads in the other holes and replace them with new bolts while your there.