Grind it?

[Gfish]

Need advice. This bolt holds down brackets on the floor of an E-350 Super Duty 15 passenger van. The brackets are for the bench seats in the back. The bolt is aprox. 2.5" long x 7/16" thick. Took out 25 of these so far, and stripped the 55mm torex head on 2 em.The torex bit is a little rounded now too. Had to use a breaker-bar to loosen all of em.
Can I grind down the heads(about 1" across & 5/16" thick) so I can pull the other brackets? What to use? They may be hardened metal, but the torex socket was able to shred the six point hole under alota pressure.  Got a dremel, but that seems like it'ed be too wimpy. Certain ones are located in areas where it's hard to access them with a large tool.

[oldmanjoe]

  Can you grind two flat sides 180 across from each other , for a wrench or vise grips pliers.      Can you see the under side of the bolts were they go through the floor  , last resort for the vise grips worst case !!

   Some times just hitting the top of the bolt to smash down will give you another bite on the torex walls ..

[Wompus Cat]

Weld a nut to em .
if you can't do that because of access or fire danger then it's Chissel Time.

[Tiddlerbasher]

Do you mean "The torex bit is a little rounded now too." Torx?

If the Torx bit, you are using, is rounded/damaged, replace and use a new one. A damaged bit is only going to damage more screws

[MarkT]

Weld a nut to em .
if you can't do that because of access or fire danger then it's Chissel Time.

Ah, but does he then use the open end of the wrench or the ratchet end?

[Wompus Cat]

Weld a nut to em .
if you can't do that because of access or fire danger then it's Chissel Time.

Ah, but does he then use the open  end of the wrench or the ratchet end?

Use a Quality 6 point box end wrench if they are that tight as the Ratchet Wrench will probably break trying to bust the thing loose. Once you get it loose THEN you might use a Ratchet wrench .

[Midway Tommy]

If you have a decent quality torx socket you can grind off the first 1/16-1/8" that's rounded and still have a good usable socket. I have a couple I had to do that to and they work just find. If I couldn't get the bolts broke loose with the torx I would grind the sides of the bolt heads to fit the biggest open end wrench that will grab good. You can always trim the sides down to the next smaller size if need be. You should be able to grind those sides with your Dremel and a grinding disk, but it will be pretty tedious. 

[oc1]

I came across those trying to take the bed off my Super Duty truck.  I think there was eight of them.  None would move without putting a four foot pipe extension over the breaker bar.  One person would stand on the breaker bar while another person would turn the pipe extension.  Shattered my torx bit and bought another.  Before the end of the week we had bought and ruined every bit that size in town.  I finally ground the head off four that wouldn't budge.  After removing the bed, they were soaked with blaster again and the nub was grabbed with a big pair of vice grips.  That got one more.  The final three were ground off flush with the frame and we drilled three new holes through the bed and the frame to accept nut, bolt and washers

[RowdyW]

Get an acetelene torch and heat the nut red hot and quickly spin them out with a long handled 1/2" ratchet.     Rudy

[Cor]

Get an acetelene torch and heat the nut red hot and quickly spin them out with a long handled 1/2" ratchet.     Rudy

LOL...without burning yourself!

[oldmanjoe]

        You guys are playing with fire here , enclosed cab , carpet a old man trying to wiggle around seats .

[Gobi King]

I would use an impact to break the weld when can get something into it.

How about shims and then insert the torx, like hard paper that does not compress.

I had to do the same to my van, definitely some kind of loctite thing on the threads
I could hear it break the weld and then it was cake.

[foakes]

Hi Greg —

The issue is that Ford used "Torx Plus Bits" for ease of installation on the assembly line.

These are self aligning bits that fit the bolts without stripping about 100% better.

It is like difference between Phillips and JIS — or a regular screwdriver compared to a hollow ground driver.

Amazon has the size you need — "TP55", for a little over $8 delivered.  I would buy a couple.

These are not available at your hardware stores — or even over the counter at Ford stores.

Ford went to these bolts in 1990.  So yours must be newer that a '90

Best, Fred

[Gobi King]

What Fred said plus,

Homedepot actually the the single bit for I think $5. It is nearly always in stock and hanging next to the sockets.

This fisherman bought the whole dang set from Lowes just for that 1 bit 

[Butch]

If that doesn't work, how about drilling it out and using an easyout?

Butch