Removing seat hinge bolts from one-piece toilet

[jakedeg]

I am trying to replace the seat of my one-piece Kohler toilet. I have purchased the PART 84999 TOILET SEAT ANCHOR KIT but removing the old bolts from my previous seat is proving to be very challenging. I used some pliers to try to unscrew them, but just ended up snapping off the heads. Now, I'm left with the shaft of the bolt in the holes in the toilet, and surrounded by some pretty solid gunk. I don't know what it is, but it looks to me like whoever installed this seat originally coated the threads with something nasty to get them to stick and not wobble, and it is sure holding them firm.

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Any ideas? How do I get these things out? Or in?

 

[Jamesplumbing06]

Dang you got a problem all right. Can you lift bolt head enough to grab it with pliers ? That’s one that I would go sit in truck and say a few bad words. I can take a pair of 9” lineman pliers and cut a 1/4 “ bolt. But put tape around bolt hole so you don’t scratch porcelain. You got a good one. Good luck

 

[cmac2012]

Maybe drill them out. Use a dremel with a small carbide tip, or even a diamond coated tip, and drill a tiny hole for your larger bit to get a purchase. Maybe buy one of those DeWalt metal drilling bits, well, most all of the twist drills are rated for steel but there's a type with point starter thing about half or a third the shaft diameter. Perhaps you could go with a 3/16 bit of that sort to make your initial hole all the way through. Then go to regular old twist drills for the next step and gradually increase the size til you get close to the porcelain. At some point you could likely bend the remnant out.

Really try to center your starting point. A tiny, tiny carbide tipped dremel cutter could do it.

Not sure what your configuration is but if there is porcelain close to where you're drilling, your drill bit could bang hard on it when you break through the hole - your pushing force will push the bit into the other porcelain. Worst case you'll break something.

 

[Mikey]

They do make what amount to tiny hole saws, intended to cut out nails, screws, etc., from wherever they've been stuck into; they come in several sizes, and may be good enough to saw out the gunk holding the screws in place. These are from www.woodcraft.com/products/screw-extractor-1-4.

Screw Extractors

• Mikey
• Sep 25, 2018

 

[cmac2012]

That might work. Not sure what steel contacting the porcelain would do, probably not shatter it if it was just scraping on the sides of a hole.

I just realized I left out the final part of my thinking on my last paragraph above. I'm mostly a carpenter so this is a trick I've used often. If you need to prevent your drill bit from charging on downward once you break through what you're drilling through, you can cut a piece of wood, maybe 1"x 1" or use some clothes hanger rod, 1" diameter dowel that is, and drill carefully through it so the hole is pretty much parallel with it. You put it on your bit first, cut to length such that the remaining amount of bit showing is slightly longer than the thickness of what you're cutting.

Cutting through steel this particularly helps because often you're pushing down pretty hard. If there is nothing but wide open space below, deeper than the length of your bit, you can accidentally jam the chuck hard into the surface of your work. Worst case scenario here you'd break the porcelain.

Once you get your first hole all the way through, it's pretty easy to then use normal twist drills progressively 1/64 larger than your first hole as they will go through pretty quickly. Probably good to cool the steel as you cut with a spray bottle.