So a red letter day today. I fired up my 60 4x4 with 312 and noticed a small water pump leak. So I removed the fan and pulley and proceeded to re-tighten the water pump bolts and the upper right bolt broke at the threads. With the front motor mount attached to the timing cover I can’t remove the timing cover to get to the bolt in the block. Any advice is appreciated.

Support the front of the engine with a jack.  Use a scissor jack or some other jack that lifts via mechanical means and can "lock" in place.  A hydraulic jack can fail and drop the engine.  Put a piece of 2x4 or similar between the jack and oil pan to spread out the load.



Lawrenceville, GA

I am afraid that this is the only to get to the bolt out. Has anyone been successful in getting a stuck bolt out without removing the timing cover?

If the stub of the broken bolt is flush or is slightly extended above the timing cover with the water pump removed, then it’s possible to MIG or TIG weld a nut to the broken bolt.  You can then use a wrench on the welded nut to attempt to remove the broken bolt.  If doing this, then it’s important that the ground wire for the welder be attached as close as possible to the broken bolt to prevent any electrical arcing to be present at the bearings.

If the broken bolt is below the surface of the water pump face of the timing cover, removing the cover will be one of the few options left to remove that broken bolt.  If a lower water pump bolt, then it's a different scenario.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

I once got a broken head bolt out without removing the head.  The bolt was not bottomed out, it just pulled in two.  Putting the broken end of the bolt back in the hole, the jagged ends caught enough to back out the bolt.  If your water pump bolt had a lock washer, try leaving the lock washer off to let the broken bolt penetrate as deep as possible. Apply as much pressure on the top of the head of the bolt as you can.   If your bolt has locked or rusted threads, this process cannot work. It's worth a try.  Good luck.

John - "The Hoosier Hurricane"

It is one of the long bolts that go thru the water pump and timing cover. By measuring the broken bolt I think there is about an inch gone on the end of the bolt. Will it leak if I put it together and drive it to my mechanic? What torque do you recommend for those 4 long water pump bolts? Do you put a dressing on the threads? Also what grade of bolts would you use? I know alot of questions. I just want to make sure this won’t happen again.

The ford truck shop manual recommended 35-40 lb of torque. I put it to 30lb and it broke the bolt.

Thanks again for all of your advice. I appreciate it.

It will leak without that bolt installed.  Best to have it towed.

The spec I see for those 3/8" bolts is 23-28 ftlbs.  Any through holes should use thread sealer.  I don't know if those upper bolts are blind or through.  Lot's of people use regular hardware store grade stainless bolts, which aren't very strong but seem to be strong enough for that purpose.  If you want a graded bolt, probably grade 5 is overkill for the application.



Lawrenceville, GA

Thanks. I will get it towed. Probably why I broke it. I was torquing it 30lbs.

Looks like I really dodged a bullet!  After one of my timing cover bolts fell out recently, I went back and tightened all the rest, but mistakenly used the torque specs. for the larger lower bolts on the smaller ones also.  Likely the paint/dry heads/rust must have compensated some.

6 VOLTS/POS. GRD. NW INDIANA

This brings up an interesting point: The bolt that I robbed from my spare motor (to replace the one that recently fell out of my timing cover) was apparently ordinary zinc-plated (from a T-Bird catalog concours hardware kit).  When I stopped at a home-center store to replace it, there were 3 options: plain zinc, grade 5, and stainless.  I couldn’t decide,  so I bought one of each.  
So, which to use?  I don’t have a trailer-queen/show car, so function is more important to me than appearance.  Stainless won’t rust, but could possibly seize in iron threads (unless the gummy thread sealer used for a coolant passage acts reliably as anti-seize?), and, maybe stainless is more brittle/likely to snap if over-torqued (?). If ‘I’ made the mistake of using the 3/8 torque spec. on the 5/16 bolts (as did the O.P.) so could others.  So then, wouldn’t ‘overkill’ (grade 5) be justified in that location, or would it be more trouble if the threads in the block were somehow stripped, rather than just the bolt snapped off?  A quandary.

6 VOLTS/POS. GRD. NW INDIANA