Snap Brake Bleeder

After replacing my brakes...?

So, after replcing my brakes, I was in the process of bleeding the brake lines, when my bleeder screw snapped. I have half still stuck in the caliper and have no idea how to remove it now. I was just reading and said that there is a steel ball inside that you cannot and will not be able to drill through. I've been working on removing it all weekend with no luck, including trying to drill through it, which I couldnt. I did read something about heating it up and shocking it cold to help loosed it up, but havent tried yet. Any other suggestions?? If i have to get a whole new caliper, do I need to replace both front ones? Or just the broken one? Oh, also been using the Grabbit tool with no avail...

Thanks.

Yeah, breaking and or stripping a bolt or nut is so terrible.

There are a few preventative steps to avoid breaking/stripping them in the first place:

1. Use WD40/ PB blaster/ Liquid wrench, etc. These penetrating liquids will help losen rusted/stuck bolts so you use less effort and less chance of stripping and breaking the bolt or nut.

2. After applying these liquid, I usually tap the nut or bolt and the vibration will also help losen it.

3. Then I use the proper tool to take out the nut or bolt.

4. If you're doing brakes, make sure you have "FLARED Nut wrenches" aka Brake line wrenches. These are different than your regular wrenches, they are wider/thicker so that you get more torque and less chance of stripping or breaking the nut/bolt. You should use these "flared nut" wrenches on "Hard brake lines" and "bleeder Screws".

5. Now that you've broken the bolt/ nut!!!!!! Here is what you do, but the outcome is probably 10% effective and 90% failure, as everyone will know:

1. Easy Out remover- These are Reveresed/counter clockwise "drill bits" and you pre-drill a hose in the nut or broken bolt, you stick these "Easy out bits" in and hopefully take out that broken nut/bolt. Effectiveness of this item is about 1%. These only work on small or not too hard material like if you had a broken screw in soft wood. But metal to metal, it's utterly useless and with the Calipers which get hot and cold, the metals tend to fuse and become the same entity, utterly hopeless.

2. You drill out that bolt completely, you go to a hardware store and buy a "TAP and DIE" set. There are Metric and Standard. The difficult part is finding out the right size.

You can drill out the hole a little undersized and then use the actual sized "TAP" to rethread the threads. Or you can drill out the hole to or oversized and find a larger "Tap" and use that to rethread a NEW thread and use new Bleeder bolt.

3. Basically, you best bet is buying a new caliper. You only need to BUY 1 if it is the only one that is bad, no need to replace all or more than one if only one is bad. So buy a new caliper install it on the car, and then try to mess with the one that is bad.