Umm..

So I'm giving my carbs the RickoMatic old school treatment. I find the FAQ endlessly helpful, and everything's gone great...until now. This story climaxes at the fuel mixture screws.

What do you do when the extractor snaps off in your brass mixture screw?

 

Brass mixture screws. Umm. Bad news. Double umm. Not original. Triple umm! Off some kind of brand X carb.

You may be in line for taking your carb to a machine shop, have them drill out the whole bit, and then re-tapping the hole. Which is difficult, because they use these m6 x .50 pitch threads, and it might be hard to find a helicoil insert that size.

UMMM!

I probably have a good used carb body available, if and when it gets down to that......


P.S. did the extractor snap off in the idle mixture SCREW, or in the brass "cap" that covers the screw bore hole?

 

Broke off in one of these bad boys. The last one, of course..

 

Re-tap the mixture screw pretending the old extractor isn't there, and use a new extractor?

Or depending on where it snapped, a pair of needle-nose vice grips?

 

Problem with that is that the extractors are usually hardned, will be tough to drill out.

 

Very hardened indeed, and it didn't exactly snap off flat, but not jagged enough to grip with pliers. I'll try to get rid of the brass around the protrusion, see if I can't get more real estate for pliers to bite onto.

 

What about trying a couple drops of brake fluid and letting it soak down
for a day?
I've heard that it can get into places that most other liquids can't.
Gets rid of crud givin time. Maybe it can free up the screw to turn out.
Also Coke (as in the soft drink) will eat the rust clean off of a nail.
Try the cheap things first. :idea:

 

Well, rust isn't really an issue now. It's that drill bit stuck in the bolt. Though I wish I'd tried these 48 hours ago.. :B

 

No rust but it might get at the crud thats seizing the screw. help it to turn.