Removing Broken Screws Holding Coroplast/Plastic Sheet Under Trailer

manyman297

During my brake/hub maintenance I noticed the dreaded broken screws holding the coroplast cover on under the trailer. I believe this last 1700 mile trip we took did the trick as I had almost 10 screw heads broken off which I didn't notice before. 

What's the easiest way to remove these? I tried the screw extractor bit which didn't work. I tried using a multitool to carve a slot in the shaft of the screw and that didn't work. Finally I had to resort to using some pliers and twisting the screws from inside the frame...super difficult and time consuming but it worked. 

On a side note...I feel like these were over-torqued which caused the shaft to weaken. I didn't notice any corrosion or anything. I know these self-tapping screws can be notorious for failures because of the enormous torque being applied to them and the thickness of the metal they're trying to pierce. Ended up replacing them with some spare bolts I had which seem to be much higher quality. 

falcon1970

Yeah, from inside the frame--until you get enough backed out that you can get a grip from below the frame.  My trailer had a metal edging piece around the edges of the coroplast through which the screw was threaded, then into the coroplast and into the frame.  returning from uCamp 19 I noticed the edging hanging down across the back.  About half the length had ground away on the highway.  The screws had disappeared.  So, those at least were not overtorqued.  I taped the coroplast in place until I got home.  Then I used shoulder washers and new screws to secure it.

manyman297

@falcon1970

Thanks for the tips! Yeah, it's been frustrating trying to get the few that were snapped off out. I loathe self-tapping screws but I get why they used them. 

IndyParrothead

I just made this repair earlier today. Rather than try to remove the two broken screws on my 400, I put two new self tapping screws in between the broken ones. I couldn’t get the self tapping screws into the frame, so I drilled a small pilot hole for them. They bored into the pilot hole and screwed right in. I only snugged them since over tightening the factory installed screws likely caused their failure.