Help - I sheared off the bolt holding the Shift Lever on the Bell Crank!!

[KM7]

Help! I screwed up! I was putting the Bell Crank back on the boat and was tightening the bolt that holds the shift lever on the bell crank. The original OMC Shop Manual said 5-7 ft -Lbs. I was using a torque wrench. I got to 5 Ft-lbs and was going just a little more…

The bold was sheared off !!! See pictures.

I am trying to remove the bold. I have tried drilling a small hole and using an Easy Out. I was making progress and had a small hole and put in the Easy Out which then snapped off $%$#@. I should have made the hole bigger and then used a larger diameter Easy Out.

And now there is a Very hard Easy Out in the hole %$#@.

I started drilling a new hole and was making progress once again, and then … I snapped off the drill bit. The Shift Lever can move, and that caused the bit to bend and break %$#

I spoke to a boat mechanic who said to use Cobalt drills, go very slowly and apply a lot of pressure.
I have been using cutting fluid.

Once I get a hole large enough for an Easy Out, this time a bigger one I plan on heating the lever with a torch before trying to remove the bold.

Any suggestions?

 

[Mc Tool]

Easy outs are not magic , gotta be careful , if you use to big an easy out you risk flaring out the end of the bolt jamming it in even tighter.
I like the straight fluted ones, bang em in hard to cut some grooves and then pull it out and the bolt will spring back a bit then refit the easy out but not so tight . Left hand drill bits are useful too.

 

[KM7]

Here are the pictures. The first 2 are before I snapped off the Easy Out

 

[Lou C]

Hello I responded to your PM
I think that bolt snapped because the end of the bolt, may not have been seated in the recess in the bellcrank
so I think you have 3 choices:
reverse drill bits
remove pivot housing and take it to a machinist for repair
replace pivot housing with another one off of ebay if you can't find a machinist locally, there are usually a number of them available with the bellcrank installed
I actually bought a complete transom assembly from a fresh water region off of ebay, to harvest parts from, because some of the fasteners on my salt water used Cobra most likely will never come out lol. I'm guessing the next time I change the shift cable that will be the issue (cable fitting won't come out of pivot housing) and I already have a nice cleaned pivot housing with the cable already installed on the bench in my garage. I also used the internals of the trim rams off of that transom mount to repair my trim rams last spring. I have found that my Cobra stuff has lasted a REALLY long time, I think it was good quality despite the lousy reputation.

 

[KM7]

Lou,

Thank you for your response.

I can't really be sure why the bolt snapped, but it was seated properly in the bell crank's recess. I lined up the parts and, at first, hand-tightened the bolt. Even with the head snapped off, the shift lever is secure to the bell crank with very little play.

Re options: 1) Reverse drill bits. I will look for some. Do you recommend Cobalt, black Oxide, or something else? I will open up a hole large enough to get a larger Easy-Out in before I try to remove the broken piece.

2) Removing the pivot housing; I just reinstalled it, and I hope not to do that, but it is an option.

3) Whole new pivot housing; I'm pretty sure that I will not have to do that.

Re quality. I agree. This is a 92 boat. It lived on a lake for it's first 20 years then on a dock in salt water 24/7 for 5 years, now on a trailer and washed off after every salt water outing. It's is pretty good shape.

I'm going to try drilling, again this morning and if that does not work then off to a welder to try to weld on something that we can grab ahold of and apply enough torque to remove it.

Thannks

 

[Lou C]

Lou,

Thank you for your response.

I can't really be sure why the bolt snapped, but it was seated properly in the bell crank's recess. I lined up the parts and, at first, hand-tightened the bolt. Even with the head snapped off, the shift lever is secure to the bell crank with very little play.

Re options: 1) Reverse drill bits. I will look for some. Do you recommend Cobalt, black Oxide, or something else? I will open up a hole large enough to get a larger Easy-Out in before I try to remove the broken piece.

2) Removing the pivot housing; I just reinstalled it, and I hope not to do that, but it is an option.

3) Whole new pivot housing; I'm pretty sure that I will not have to do that.

Re quality. I agree. This is a 92 boat. It lived on a lake for it's first 20 years then on a dock in salt water 24/7 for 5 years, now on a trailer and washed off after every salt water outing. It's is pretty good shape.

I'm going to try drilling, again this morning and if that does not work then off to a welder to try to weld on something that we can grab ahold of and apply enough torque to remove it.

Thannks

If you’re sure that the bolt was seated in the recess you could use it as is, the only reason to remove the shift lever on the bell crank is to replace the oring on the bell crank that keeps water out of the shifter bellcrank area.

 

[KM7]

I'm a little tempted to do that, just leave it for now and get the boat ready for summer. I'm pretty sure that the shift lever will stay tight on the bell crank. I could fix it the next time I pull the OD. I will let you know.

 

[Mc Tool]

If there is any movement between the shift lever and bell crank it will get worse with use.
I think further drilling will be difficult as your 1st hole is way off centre.
Good luck

 

[KM7]

A machinist with a welder tried to weld material onto the broken bolt. The plan was then to grab hold of that material and unscrew the bolt. He could not get that to work. At one point, he accidentally welded the bolt to the shift lever. Now we are considering removing the pivot housing and putting the whole thing on a drill press and drilling a hole in the bolt and removing in with an Easy-Out.

 

[Mc Tool]

Can you get access to the other end of the bolt ?

 

[Lou C]

There's pretty much no access to the other end, my thought is if the machinist can't get the bolt out, he could cut the bell crank and pull it out but there isn't much room to get any kind of a cutting tool in there, that's why I advised if that fails, buy a used pivot housing off of ebay. They are available and not expensive.

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Just get another shift lever, bolt and bellcrank and put it back together...

 

[KM7]

The machinist got the broken bolt out, but it was not easy. I had to remove the pivot housing, then he put it on a drill press. That worked, but it all cost $450 !!!! That was an expensive lesson on overtorquing something. I was using a torque wrench. The wrench has a long handle and it was east to overtorque the bolt. Next time I will just use a 8 inch socket wrench. I will also use a low strength thread locker to prevent the bolt from backing out

I also learned a lesson about Easy-Outs. They are brittle. I should have gradually opened up the hole and used a larger Easy-Out. That may not have snapped.

Another lesson would be to confirm the hourly rate before working with a machinist. It would have been cheaper to just cut through the bell crank and replace both the crank and lever!!

I was able to save the shift lever by drilling out the hole a little larger and tapping in new threads. I went up tp 5/16 - 18. I will use a stainless steel socket head cap screw and the thread locker I mentioned above.

The next step will be to reassemble the pivot housing, U-Joint bellows and exhaust bellows back on the boat. I will create a separate post on that.

 

[Lou C]

Good work, from every problem, you learn solutions! I haven't had too many problems with the Cobra, despite my salt water use, last spring I had to rebuild both trim rams, the seals started leaking (after 35 years!) and the loop at the end of the ram where it bolts to the drive was really corroded (moored in the salt) so I replaced the ram rods, with new seals, on the original cylinders still on the boat. Not a hard job, as long as you can get those end caps to come off.
The other challenging job should you ever have to do it, is if your boat has power steering. Those actuators leak after years of use, replacing that is a headache, I had to remove the exhaust on both sides (4.3 V6) to get at it, and the biggest challenge was getting the cotter pins for the mounting bolts out.
I bought a used complete transom mount from a freshwater region and have been harvesting parts off of it, it was actually well worth the cost. The steering actuator, I bought a good used one, but the actuator valves can actually be rebuild, up to '89 that is.
The bellows isn't too bad on the Cobra, what I do is disconnect the shift cable not at the pivot housing but up on the engine bracket, that allows me to remove the pivot housing bolts so I can pull it back to make sure I really get the bellows seated properly.