Snapped both bolt heads trying the DIY on the neutral safety switch, now what???

[Jeff T]

My daughters 4 cyl 00' Solara has been having some issues so I found the DIY write-up on the neutral safety switch. I was going to give that a whirl till it spanked me today.

Any suggestions now?

Thanks!

[WaxonWaxStillOn]

In this thread I already learned 2 things:

1. Why my shift indicator light only partially works

2. Why I don't necessarily want to fix it....

I'll stayed tuned for learning #3...how to recover from these broken bolt heads.

If you're going to take advantage of the nss, you're obviously going to have to get those bolts out by drilling or extracting. Otherwise, I'd guess you can secure the area if it's open/exposed and drive without the unit working, since it looks like it's just an indicator mechanism (but I really don't know, just found out about this device after reading your post, lol)

I'm also guessing this car has been in the rust belt and that's why the bolt heads broke off, something that's probably not as much a threat on mine.

[Jeff T]

The word "snapped" isn't correct... After reading some posts, I thought I was cautious and carefull, they just twisted off like putty...

[retiredat44]

take the car to an auto shop or machine shop that spcializes in removing broken and stripped thread and bolts... it should not cost much...

[Mister_Perkins]

You'll need to use a right angle drill and possibly remove the radiator depending on how much room you need. Idealy you would use a Magnetic drill press so you can drill straight, but the right angle drill will work. You will need to drill the bolts out and then run a tap to get new threads.

The other thing you could do is use the right angle drill again, but use a small drill bit big enough to fit a small easy out into. Drill a hole, put the easy out in it and spin it out.

The problem is you're getting a chemical bond from the two different metals, (a difference of electro-negativity). You've got to physically break that bond. I don't know of any magical chemical that will break the bond, and I think even if there is one, it would be hard to get into the threads. PB Blaster is the best stuff I've used, but you might be screwed.