When I went on last week's RFTH trial run, I noticed that my car was sounding pretty bad. The problem turned out to be an exhaust manifold gasket blown out. The bolts holding the manifold on came out fairly easily, and one of them was already out -- or so I thought. Actually, only half of it was already out, and the other half was still in the head. The bolt was broken.
So now I had the problem of extracting a broken bolt. I went to Lowes, and found something called Grabit Pro, which had three things that looked like this (in different sizes):

There's a stubby reverse drill bit on one end (you have to run the drill in reverse to use it), and the screw thing you see on the other end. I figure the drill bit is reverse, so that in drilling, you don't tighten the broken stub any more than it is. The paper that came with it says it's hard enough to drill a No. 10 hardness bolt.
Drilling the stub wasn't easy. I used a right angle air drill, and I actually had to drill a pilot hole with a smaller bit first. But eventually I got the hole drilled, so I reversed the gadget with the screw end in the hole, and turned it with a socket wrench. And it worked -- the stub came out.

The stub was stuck on the end of that thing so firmly that I had to use pliers to break it off.
So if you have a broken bolt, consider using a Grabit to get it out.

[This message has been edited by TopNotch (edited 07-26-2013).]

Thanks for the tip on the tool. Great job getting that bolt out. I've tried using Easy-Outs a number of times over the years and maybe had one success. The key is getting the pilot hole centered of the broken bolt so you don't catch the tool on a thread. This tool looks much smaller than an Easy-Out, so the pilot hole can be smaller.

Tried using one of those on a broken swaybar bushing bolt. The idea was great at the start, but the extractor end snapped half way up the threads on the first turn. I did get the broken bolt out using the old style easy-out. It was fun working around the broken Grabit end. I am sure the Grabit works, just depends on how corroded in the bolt is. Hey, I still have the other Grabits in the kit to use later.

[This message has been edited by Kevin87FieroGT (edited 07-26-2013).]

I have the same Grabbit set and use them all the time to extract screws with messed up Phillips slots,
or galled stainless screws, and even messed up titanium screws in aircraft.
But I have only used them up to 1/4-20, nothing bigger.
For large items, an easy-out and tap socket work great.

That is interesting, I use easy outs with success but I modify them to look like that, ie I cut all of it off except the beginning so they are really short like that, otherwise they just break. Thanks for showing us though I will have to get some