I broke off a 1/4-20 tap in my engine while I was in the process of rebuilding it. I tried many different ways of removing the broken tap and all of my attempts up till now have not been succesful. My brother-in-law said he had heard about a so called "tap extractor," so I did an internet search and low and behold I found such a beast. The tool is made by Walton Company in West Hartford CT and it worked great! I bought the tool from the Toolsource.com for ~ $11. It has 3-4 fingers (depending on the tap you are extracting) and is sized for the tap you need to extract. The fingers are inserted into the flutes of the broken tap and then an integral collar is slid down to surface of the hole to support the fingers and then you use a tap wrench to work the tap free. Just a heads up in case you find yourself with a broken tap in the future.


Jim

1954 GMC 1/2-ton Longbed
1971 Pontiac LeMans Sport