RB26 Cam Cap Bolt Snapped

[BourneToLive]

Hey, everyone,

I had an unfortunate thing happen to me while changing out cams. One of the cam cap bolts snapped in the second-to-last cap of the exhaust cam. I really don’t want to spend a whole day taking everything apart and putting it back together for the fifth time. Is it possible to just removing the one cam cap and extract the broken bolt without taking everything else apart (everything involved with loosening belt tension and removing the other cam caps)? I just want to know if it’s possible to do without breaking my cam. Would it lessen the risk if I rotate the cam to where the lobes in that area are not being pushed on by the valves springs? 

[Duncan]

Yeah that is fine, you can change one cap at a time.

If it was my engine however I would treat every bolt as suspects (why would just one break?) and replace every bolt either with new nissan parts or switch to cam studs

[BourneToLive]

1 hour ago, Duncan said:

Yeah that is fine, you can change one cap at a time.

If it was my engine however I would treat every bolt as suspects (why would just one break?) and replace every bolt either with new nissan parts or switch to cam studs

That’s good to know. 
It was human error. I over torqued the bolt. I barely felt the click in my 3/8 torque wrench and kept turning the bolt. 

[hardsteppa]

I have broken old cam cap bolts a couple of times. In my experience, they don't age well, and better to plan to replace with new bolts if yours are 5+ years old. Drilling out the broken bolt section was a bit messy with the engine in the car, but, turned out fine. I now use the Tomei cam bolt studs although, even broke one of those and it was only a few years old. DEFINITELY something to be very gentle with.

[BourneToLive]

Yeah. The more I think about it, the more I want to go with replacing all of them. The only thing keep me from doing that is that some bolt seem to be seized in the cam caps. I have no idea how to pull those things out without possibly damaging the caps. 

[hardsteppa]

wd-40 first.