Hi, trying to remove waterpump plug, she's stuck fast & rounded off, I've tryed all sorts get it out! Was thinking as last resort to mig weld a nut on it may be but I'm not sure on how safe for the electronics and bearings this will be. Also have a small crack in manifold to mig... Any advise please! 😵

Have you tried an Easy-Out? (Or whatever you call them over there.)

I think there called screw extractors over here. I haven't tryed that yet, I have a feeling it will either shear off the extractor or chew up the nut as its stuck fast. The hex rounder out unsing impact driver on high torque low speed!

Was thinking about maybe tapping a left hand tightening bot in there but I'm not sure of the depth I can drill?

Easi-Outs are of varying quality. If you are going do this go to an engineering supplies shop and buy the best quality. I have had cheaper Easy-Out type extractors break. I presume you have tried gentle hammering, heat and liquid chemicals in attempting to release the stubborn plug. 
Welding: If you are not confident in you MIG welding skills, you risk doing damage to the Ali. surrounding the stuck plug - better to get a skilled welder/mechanic to do it. If doing it yourself, first disconnect and remove the battery and disconnect wiring connections to key electronics - esp the CPU and EFI computers. Put protective covering anywhere where weld spatter is likely to cause damage.
a 3rd Option: If you careful drill a small centered hole in the plug and then progress with larger drills you will end up with only a small amount of remaining plug left. It is possible then to use a cold chisel of suitable size to tap on the remaining plug counter-clockwise and remove it. Alternatively with only a small amount of plug left you can tap it in sections inwards with will break off the remaining plug and should leave the Ali casting thread intact - Good Luck.

Excellent suggestions redrockmania! I am a pretty confident Welder, I just don't like doing it if I can avoid when there are electronic systems and bearings involved 🤪

I'm gonna try..

1 extractor
2 tap
3 drill
4 weld

Some other tricks to try:

Soak with penetrating oil.

Heat it up with a butane torch.

Vise-Grips

Pounding a high quality Torx bit into a stripped Allen head has been known to work.

And swearing. Lots and lots of swearing.


I had a temp sensor break off in that hole over the summer when removing it for a coolant change. An Easy-Out did the trick with surprisingly little torque.

Heat it up and use a quality Torx bit in an impact screwdriver, and hit it with Thors hammer while cursing in old Nordic.
Regards Martin.

I have had pretty good luck with stuck Allen head fasteners by using Torx bits and a pneumatic impact wrench. 

The Torx bits are very hard and there are sizes that are a bit larger than Allen so I can drive the bit into the stripped out head without having to drill it out.  In fact, what's left if the Allen socket gives a great bite.  The impact wrench does a great job of jarring the seized fastener loose.  A little bit of heat around the fastener helps a lot, too.

MartinW wrote:Heat it up and use a quality Torx bit in an impact screwdriver, and hit it with Thors hammer while cursing in old Nordic.
Regards Martin.

How to swear like a Viking:
https://kellyaevans.com/swearing/

duck wrote:Some other tricks to try:

Soak with penetrating oil.

Heat it up with a butane torch.

Vise-Grips

Pounding a high quality Torx bit into a stripped Allen head has been known to work.

And swearing. Lots and lots of swearing.


I had a temp sensor break off in that hole over the summer when removing it for a coolant change. An Easy-Out did the trick with surprisingly little torque.

Best bet is slacken off the bottom hose clamp and drain it that way. The drain plug and temp sensor in the drain plug hole seem to have a habit of going wrong.

Best bet is slacken off the bottom hose clamp and drain it that way. The drain plug and temp sensor in the drain plug hole seem to have a habit of going wrong.

I no longer do that.  A few years ago I did that on my K1100RS.  A couple of hundred miles later the hose blew.




Had to take the belly pan, seat and tank off in a parking lot to do a ghetto repair and refill it.

Give the easyouts a miss. They will break and then you're stuck with a piece of high-carbon steel that you can't drill. I know this is a stupid question, but have you tried using a side-drive socket? In most cases they will deal with a rounded nut as long as there is some flat bit left.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Silverline-826021-Impact-Socket-1-2-Drive-6-Point-Metric-32mm/263856150360?epid=22022099146&hash=item3d6f0d5758:g:mQIAAOSwhUtbZEa4

Yes, it's an impact socket (!!) but it was the best pic I could find that illustrates the curved walls and the hex-cutaway. Just about all of my sockets are 6-point side-drive because it's very difficult (but not impossible) to round off nuts with them.

Otherwise, I'm with the smack-a-Torx-drive-with-a-big-'ammer brigade.

Duck: that looks like sheer bad luck.

[Edit]. Oh bollocks - we were talking about an allen bolt with the inside rounded off, weren't we? Never mind - it's all good info anyway!

Dai wrote:Duck: that looks like sheer bad luck.

That's not bad luck. It's causality. That's exactly where I held the hose to pull it off for draining. And it failed shortly thereafter.