Ford: 68 mustang with broken thermostat bolt into manifold

just thought of this one and might want to give it a try.. you say the
vice grips dont hold onto the broken bolt that sticks out... this is
what i did years ago with a small plug into the intake manifold on a 66
mustang.. the plug was for maybe the exhaust gases to go back to the
choke on the carb to warm it up???? anyway i could not get this plug to
move at all.. i stripped the head on it with the vicegrips.. so it filed
it down to fit into a 1/4 in. drive socket(i believe it was a 1/4 or 3/8
in. socket and i then beat it onto the plug head.. the socket cracked,
but head onto the plug and i used a 1/4 to 3/8 in. adapter to use the
3/8 in drive 18 in. breaker bar to get it going.. about a year later i
got the socket off of the plug and brought it back to sears(it was a
craftsman) so it did not cost me anything to get a new one... if that
dont work, you might want to try a very small pipe wrench with the teeth
into the bolt stub and see if that works... i find that anytime i broke
a bolt it was because i had it too tight from an earlier repair.... also
make sure when turning the wrench that it is exactly 90 degrees from the
center of the bolt and not on an angle as you want all the force to go
into turning the bolt and not forcing the head onto an angle and have it
break... i did this with alot of lug nut that were the cap type(the nut
covered the theaded stud).... used one of those cheap 60 deg. angle tire
tools and just shoved down to break it and the lug would snap off....
the same will happen with any bolt if not actually putting the force
into a circle to remove the bolt... hope this makes sense and helps.

"Backyard Mechanic" <com> wrote in message
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wrench-lovers 
socket 

Yep... Definitely an important thing to steady your tools... My friend used
to wrench like that, carelessly, after rounding off a few bolts he learned
to listen to me.

On the other hand I've used one of them lug nut wrenches that aren't at 90*
angle at a junk yard to get the wheel off a car to get to the drums and
spindle. Them nuts were on there _real_ good. It was tricky at first as I
was lodging a piece of exhaust pipe into the tire to keep it from turning,
then I figured what the hey, let me see if the brakes still work...
Miraculously they did, and they got jammed on real good and wouldn't
release. So I started jumping on the lug wrench, which didn't break it
loose. Now I'm no heavyweight, I'm a scrawny 180 lb 6'3.5" guy who's started
developing a round stomach (gotta exercise, this belly runs in the family!)
but I don't suppose I'm feather light either. So holding onto the fender and
jumping on the wrench wouldn't do it, so I had my step-dad who is over 200
lbs get on it with me and with the two of us jumping on the wrench we were
able to break loose the nuts. Not all of them were that hard, but a few
were. Amazingly between my 180 lbs and his 250+ lbs we didn't strip the nuts
or break the studs using the cheapo lug wrench. The wrench was bending a
good bit though, and twisting after the bend. LOL We thought we were gonna
snap it.