2003 Ford GT-40 Starter bolts

Ok a friend of my'n has a 2003 SAN. 1 of the 2 bolts that holds the starter in broke clean off at the block. It needs to be extracted. He has asked for my help. I need to buy the stuff to drill out and extract the broken bolt. I was planning on center drilling the broken bolt and then using a left hand drill bit and then a easy out if needed. My question is!!!

What is the size bolt that holds the Starter in. I'm guessing 3/4 or 7/16 ??

Thanks in advance and if anyone has happend to have done this glorious and fun fix if you have any tips that would be great.

The boat is at the lake 2 hrs away and I wanted to get everything here in the Bay Area so I'm good to go

the bolt is most likely 3/8th by 4 1/2 long range. it's def not 3/4

It's basically a ford explorer motor so if you're close to an auto parts store you might be able to get an exact replacement over digging in the "bolt bin"

Make sure to put some BP blaster on the bolt before you start.. or heat up the casing with a torch.

That's a good Idea. I can put a bit of heat around the block. Fingers crossed the broken bolt may spin out. Do you think heating the block will draw the PB into the threads?

thats gonna suck. hopefully a direct drive boat. I've never had luck with EZ Out extractors, but I guess that's what you need. I like the heat and PB blaster idea as well.

worst case scenario, keep increasing drill bit size until you can break it apart with a pick. May need to chase the threads or even go to a bigger bolt hole and tap for a new one so take a set of taps with you.

Yes that's my last ditch effort will be to drill till I get close to the Orignal size and the tap it for new threads I hope it dosent come to that. Fingers crossed. But that's for reminding me I should grab a fresh tap

If the easy out breaks your screwed. That's a bad position to try and get a bolt out. I've taken a smaller bolt( like a 1/4" and welded it to the broken bolt then backed it out. I have never had good luck with drilling out bolts and really bad luck with easy outs. Heat helps a lot. Is it flush to the starter or the block?

It's broke off clean with the block. My thoughts are that because the bolt broke while not being tightend or loosend it may just back out. My friend said this. His boat was having staring issues he went to check the starter and it was so loose it almost fell off the top bolt had broken off and the bottom was almost all the way backed out.

Another trick is take a punch and use it to back it out. Punch it counterclockwise. Bring a dental pick. They work well

Gm starter bolt is 3/8. Not sure what your dealing with but I just looked in my tool box to verify sbc is 3/8 . I think they are also different lengths. Again I'm talking sbc.

Heat it up spray it with PB blaster then go have a beer and let it cool down and hopefully drawn some penetrate down into the threads . Then reverse drill it starting a little smaller and going bigger with the bit seems like the heat generated and then gradually going up in size will mess with the integrity of the broken bolt and get it loose ..Ive been lucky many times and had the heat from drilling and the reverse rotation take the bolt right out for me . If that doesnt work keep drilling until you can either pick the threads clean and re tap it or go to a next size up bolt ..sometimes if you cant jump one whole size you can go to a metric bolt thats not quite as large of a jump in diameter . I HATE EZ OUTS !!! there hard as a teenagers head and seem to be extremely brittle and impossible to drill through . GOOD LUCK !!!

Another trick I've used is to cut a slot in the bolt with dremel tool and use a screwdriver and wrench to back it out.anything but an easyout.

Hey thanks for the replys I have gotten lots of good tips. The (dremmel and making a slot) I never thought about that for this project but that's a good Idea. I have don't that b4 and it worked great. If it dosent work, I can always center puch and go for it. I also like the idea of starting with a smaller left hand drill and progressively getting larger and larger left hand drills untill it either backs out or your end up close to the Orignal size and then tap. The center punch in a circle is good to.