Im getting my old motor stripped down and got to the flywheel and three of the bolt heads were already partially rounded and every bolt was more than my impact gun wanted to remove. i got three out overworking the impact gun. I got the worst of the rounded ones out by drilling it and sort of reforrming the head enough to hold in the socket and am assuming the heat of the drilling helped break what appears to be a thread locker. one of the two remaining nuts totally stalls out the impact and I plan to put some heat to it and give it a try. The last bolt is rounded pretty good and if it wont break easily with heat then I will have to try other means of getting it out. I do need the flywheel to put on my new longblock so I dont want to harm it. Any suggestions or tips would be great or am I on the right track of trying heat and if they wont go drill the head enough to break off. I am also tempted to grind enough off head to try a 13mm socket or 1/2 if go to far. Also going to check out the sears store as I will be working about ten miles away from one tomorow and see if they have the bolt out thing they carry as my dad had luck with one of them on his car a while back ago. thanks for any input or advice. Sheez i wanna cuss the guys who put that clutch in as it hasnt seen many miles but sat for about a year and a half. ive shot them with pb blaster too.

 

I ran across one of those last winter. Bolt heads rounded off almost instantly, and heat didn't break them loose. I called a friend who runs a transmission shop and he said that it isn't an uncommon scenario when taking stock flexplates off . His recommendation? Use a chisel attachment on an air hammer. Resign yourself to the fact that you may not save the flexplate. I had success in about five minutes, not by shearing the head off the bolt but by working it in a counterclockwise ("lefty loosen") pattern. It came out, quite a bit the worse for the experience, but it was out.

Good luck,

c

 

That's what cheap Chinese wrenches and a welder are good for. I weld the wrench to the bolt and it comes right off.

 

I use a grinder and grind each side perfectly flat. Then use whatever wrench fits with an extension. Takes 2 minutes.

 

got them out today. I had a worn down disc from my 7" grinder and broke off one side to create a heat sheild as the hole size was perfect for the bolt heads. Then I heated with small plumbing torch with mapp gas until metal arbor ring on grinder wheel was starting to glow and put the craftsman bolt out on and used impact socket over the top of it and the impact gun popped them right out. Before i heated the bolts I hammered the bolt off socket onto the damaged heads. The 5 or six peice bolt out was ten bucks so all in all was a decent fix and was able to do it by myself with no help as any method without the impact would have required stopping the motor from rotating.