Snapped head bolt quandry!!!

Hi guys, the project eventually started today with stage 1 being a top end rebuild of my 3.9 auto Disco . The bad news is a previous muppet owner seems to have had one head off too and in the process didn't evenly torque that head, used a wonderul combination of bolts and left out gaskets, washers, etc.

Even worse one of the head bolts has snapped :doh:, which raises 2 questions:-

1. The bolt in question is on the bottom bank of four, now i know later engines didn't use that row of four bolts, so can i take the risk of putting the head back without this bolt. Which leads me to the second question.

2. If the response is an overwhelming no, what's the best method of getting the snapped bit out, bear in mind that the car is on my drive and i don't really want to take the block out .

One final thing, the shoppong list is of course growing, does anybody have a pair of exhaust manifolds, the originals have lovely cracks and a bottom cover for the flyheel, mine's missing and i don't think exposing the flywheel will be any good when i get it wet. I'm in the North East if that helps.

Thanks in advance guys.

for the bolt eaziouts if you can get at it.

yeah , use studd extractors, drill a hole in the stubb end of the broken bolt, say 5mm, do a 3mm first to open it up, then using a tap / die handle, the studd extracor works left hand to bite and remove the broken threaded end ! make sure its soaked in wd40 or petrol to ease it out .

If the head is still on, then you may be lucky and have a bit left to get hold of.

Snapped bolt suggests that they were not renewed, they are a one-shot bolt, change them when you have the heads off.

Steel into ali block is normally not a seizure problem, you may find that it comes out OK, but do get the drill central of you are going to use an eazi-out.

Peter