Well, I decided to change my tranny fluid and filter yesterday. Everything was going as planned, until I got to the last bolt. The sixth bolt had 'cold welded' itself into the aluminum clamp. Before I knew it the head had sheared off the bolt! After much cursing I managed to get the pan off and, finally, the clamp off the remnants of the bolt (clamp broke in process - more cursing).

So, now I have the remnants of the stud to deal with (too close to the tranny internals to use a stud extractor or a torch). Only option, with regard to the stud, might be to tack weld a nut onto the end and try and back it out, but I am open to other ideas...

My other problem is I need to find a replacement clamp - any ideas?

I currently have the pan back on and I am using a very small c-clamp to hold that corner of the pan in place....

 

I got nutin' but I will give you a bump.

 

Do you mean you have the remnants of a bolt to deal with?

How much of it is sticking out? Don't discount a pair of vice grips - if it was just bound at the bolt head, it may come out easily. Next up, if you don't have the space would be tacking a nut to it, like you suggested. If you don't have enough space to do that, carefully drilling and using a spiral flute extractor (ez-out) would probably be next.

But it's tough to give you suggestions without pictures of just what you got yourself into.

 

Dealer only unless you can find a used one from a small tranny shop.

 

You could try having another bolt welded to the end of the stuck one

 

Damn, I guessed it would be dealer only, but I hate those blood suckers!

Yeah it is the remnant of the bolt. It is long enough (~1") but only ~3/16" thick, so the vice grips aren't really gripping it. I can only get them in inline with the bolt as there isn't enough room to get them on perpendicular to the bolt. If I could get them on perpendicular to the bolt I'm sure I could get it out.

I'm thinking I may be forced to cut this one off and drill and tap a new hole.

I'll see if I can snap a couple of pictures...

 

As promised...

A picture says a thousand words...

 

If the threads on the bolt (now stud) are clean enough, could you possibly double nut it? Unless you have ready access to a welder to tack weld a nut on the end, this is the approach I would try, after soaking down the end where it goes into the transmission with PB Blaster. If space is too limited to tighten the two nuts together, possibly dremel a slot in the end of the bolt for a screwdriver (again after soaking down the opposite end with PB Blaster)

 

I think I may have found just the tool to pull the remnants of that bolt...



This has a 1/2" drive so once tight I could get the impact driver on it.

 

Oh....so by "I don't have enough room" you actually mean "unless I take the pan back off."

Yeah...you can try some other things, but I find that bolt extraction is nothing to play around with. I always prefer to get the best angle with the most surface contact I can on things as to avoid larger problems when quick first attempts fail.

Wish you the best, but I'd sugest doing it the long but correct way.