Removing a broken screw out of my Vigilants front door

I was in the process of changing the broken glass on my stove door and of course one of the screws broke off in the steel on the door. It broke flush, i cant even grab it with a vice grip or pliers. Also, The screws are on the inside part of the stove exposed to the intense heat. Do you need special screws that can handle the heat? Thanks guys and gals

The heat is not the enemy, the lack of high temp anti-seize is the enemy. I soak them in PB Blaster...and sometimes they will let go, but more often than not, I end up right where you are. Cast is one of the finest products to rust up in a very short time, hence you MUST outsmart the process. For all those who haven't been there yet, DO NOT try it right now, but it won't hurt to soak the screws right now and see if next week they will loosen up. If not, grind them flush, get a high quality center punch, and drill it out. Perhaps it will let go for an ezy-out, but no guarantees. If you see a Snap=on truck, you can flag him down. I like Matco and Mac myself, and Sears has lots of products for this purpose.
PS: WD 40 won't loosen the rust, but your favorite penetrant will work over time. If none of these things work, you can call the manufacturer and order a new door( or if you have a short fuse and smash the damned thing.....)

I know someone will talk about the left hand drills that are so popular. Great idea, and if they work for you, congrats!

Try some penetrating oil, and a bolt extractor. The extractors come in kits that can be found at the hardware store You first drill a small hole in the screw. The extractor has reversed thread that is threaded into the hole. You might want to try applying some heat to it too right before you try and take it out.

Both Richard and WN are correct that patience is a virtue in these cases and those extractor/left threaded kits can work if you take your time and let the PB soak in for a while. I have one of those kits and it's importent that you get the hole drilled to just the proper size for the easy-out (nothing easy about it usually). I usually try and drill it the size of the extractor minus the threads so that the extractor has just enough meat to grab ahold but not too small a hole or it will strip out the material before it has a good enough bite. A drill press is really helpful here.

If the methods proposed here don't work, you can find in a tools specialist store what they name ""new thread replacement"" but not shure of the name. My brother-in- law show me some when I sand blasted the Sunny at his farm. you just drill a hole according to the screw you want to use then insert the new thread in the hole. That thing looks like if you take a screw and drill inside of it so you only get the outer thread, about 3/8" long.
Sorry for the translation, a little hard on my English but I will try to reach my brother-in-law and ask for a photo and description of that thing.

Sometimes you can remove a broken screw after drilling a small hole in the broken screw and placing a very small flat screwdriver on the hole then hit it with a hammer to force it to penetrate in the hole. Then try to play clockwise a little, then in the opposite direction....keeping a downward pressure on the top of the screwdriver.If you can get some play in the screw your OK. Hitting on the top of the screwdriver also helps to get the screw free.

You could get a tap for slightly larger hole. I was was getting good at it in my younger days. Worked in a bike shop and the left hand pedal on a bike is left hand thread. Probably see one a month where they tried to put the wrong pedal into the wrong side, usually a new bike they bought at the store that wasn't assembled.

Like stated above, after PB blasting for a few days on my glass screws, two came out nice, the other two---NOT--I went a drill size bigger & tapped the holes---put plenty of anti-seize on them when replacing---make sure to drill the hold in flat stock also, a little item I over-looked

Yup, what they all said. The only thing I'll add is if you are temped to use heat, heat the whole thing to a certain point before you bring the work area red. You can break cast by heating just one spot. I'd use heat as a dead last resort. With cast iron I'll drill & tap before I heat. If the threaded hole does not go all the way through you'll need to buy A "bottom tapping" tap as well as the exact size drill for that size tap.

A bttm tap is a must to chase/clean the threads. I know some don't agree with it, but I use SS bolts as well. The HT anti seize compound and SS bolts have worked great for me. Always come out without issue.

When I bought my new Keystoker, I removed every screw and anti-siezed them, soon I will know if it was worth my effort.

if its compleatly flush just drill and tap another hole a half inch or so away from the old screw and of course a new hole has to be made in the window clip.

One thing I forgot to say is that the location for the screws on the V2 doors is very thin and to drill and make new threads could be very hard.
If the old screw stay frosted in the thread, drill from one side to the other, the size of the original bolts then just put a new bolt from the exterior and have the nut inside. Where the bolt head will arrive at the ext. it will be very hard to see it with a little black paint on the head.

Because the holding bracket sits on one side of the glass to compress the rope gasket on the other side, these bolts SHOULD'T be tighten very hard. Better to re-tighten them a few times during the heating season and having them easy to remove if needed. No need to have the glasses air tight so much on that stove cause the lower part of the glasses is without rope gasket seal to create an air vent over the fire, well supposed to make it

Where I work we use Heli-Coils our, sizes start at 1/4 -20 and go up. Some applications such as cast iron we'll heli-coil the holes on brand new parts, some of the rebuilds we'll drill out the broken studs and heli-coil them. I have an old Gravely walk behind and heli-coils save the day. They are actually a kit with a drill, different length coils, bottom tap, installtion tool and a gaget to breal off the lead on the coil that is used to drive it in the hole. All the coils we use are stainless, a few parts houses have the kits that you can rent.

Try a left handed drill bit, the size smaller than the screw.I have had a lot of luck getting broken screws and bolts out with left handed bits.

duck wrote:Where I work we use Heli-Coils our, sizes start at 1/4 -20 and go up. Some applications such as cast iron we'll heli-coil the holes on brand new parts, some of the rebuilds we'll drill out the broken studs and heli-coil them. I have an old Gravely walk behind and heli-coils save the day. They are actually a kit with a drill, different length coils, bottom tap, installtion tool and a gaget to breal off the lead on the coil that is used to drive it in the hole. All the coils we use are stainless, a few parts houses have the kits that you can rent.

Yep makes sense. Thing with cast iron is it tempers from heating cycles and get quite hard after a while. My cookstove, a couple of the lids had a bit of wobble and I wanted to make them sit flat. One of the pieces that hold them needed a litte grinding with an angle grinder. I couldn't believe how hard that stuff had become over the years. I went through 3 discs just to take off a very small amount! Part of it was clogging the disc and only having small bit of the disc i could use for the spot, but still the material was way harder than I thought it would be.