How would you remove fender bolt+nut that I accidentally squished with a jack? (1997 Toyota Tercel)

Maintenance/Repairs
1

Things I’ve tried:

  1. Vice grips (this caused the bolt to get stripped)
  2. Drill a hole for a screw extractor but the drill bit keeps breaking.
  3. Use a wrench to bench the fender flange back into place (images 2 & 3)
  4. Cold chisel to try to make a flathead screwdriver able to fit in the bolt head. My chisel wasn’t cutting in too deep. I might try this again but on the side and really knock the screwdriver with a hammer tomorrow.

combined
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2

Is the point that you need to remove the fender? Take a grinder to it, and then just rig a new way to secure the fender when it goes back on. It’s just holding a body panel, not securing a head gasket or something.

2 Likes
3

I use this damaged bolt head/nut removal socket set.

s-l1200
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You pound the socket onto the damaged bolt head. Then as you try to loosen the bolt the flutes in the socket grab the bolt head tighter the more you turn to loosen it.

Also works great on rusted bolt heads and nuts.

hq720
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Tester

1 Like
4

I would remove that with a cutoff wheel. Cut the nut side off, punch out remainder. 30 seconds, on to next problem…

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5

Looks like the bolt is basically not securing the fender anyway, I see the bolt turned sideways in the middle picture, just move it back and forth and it should pull out nut and all pretty easy… lol

If you are not removing the fender then just leave it be, you may be opening up a can of worms…

1 Like
6

Tin worms? :wink:

2 Likes
7

I’d probably use a dremmel cut-off wheel to make an “x” in the bolt face, then start the drill at the center of the “x” and drill the bolt out. Bolts like that are pretty soft steel, doesn’t take much to drill them out. If your drill bit is breaking, it is either dull, too small diameter, or made from weak steel. There’s a big difference in the materials drill bits are made of, expensive to less expensive. I have several types, and the less expensive set of bits break all the time.

8

Unless that fender needs to come off, I’d leave it alone.