Subaru WRX Power Steering Mounting Bolt Broken :-( Help!

This is from an email I got from an old friend this week:

"About a month and a half ago I brought my wrx to the stealership to have them replace power steering pump.  Power steering has been gradually getting less and less reliable over the past months and I finally decided it was time to stop ignoring the problem.  I had briefly considered going it myself, but after a couple good snowstorms and the mercury not rising above 32 for a couple of weeks I decided to pay.

So I drive the car into the stealership, leave it, get a call the next day that there is a problem and that I should come down and have a look.  So I do, and am shown a broken power steering mounting bolt which broke while the tech was replacing it.  I come in and assume they’re going to tell me it would take longer than originally expected, which I would have been fine with.  Instead they tell me repairing the bolt could cost in the neighborhood $1200 on top of the price I agreed to pay to have the pump replaced.  So we exchange words.  I bring in the stealership management, I bring in Subaru of America.  We discuss; they stick to their guns; I appeal to corporate; they back the stealership.  After a week or so, it appears i’m making no progress, so I decide to have the car towed out so I don’t risk incurring any storage charges from the stealership.  To add insult to injury, they charge me a $50 restocking fee on the pump plus $128 in labor for the privilege of having broken my car and leaving it undriveable.  I vow to never buy another Subaru ever again.

Fast forward 6 weeks.  The car has been sitting idle in my driveway.  I look at it ever single day with disgust, reminded of this pathetic situation.  But now it’s time to set my disgust aside and figure out what the heck i’m going to do about it.  The broken bolt is in the top of the engine block.  Naturally there’s a bunch of E36 M3 in the way that makes it rather difficult to get to.  It’s not a very large bolt.  My first instinct was to considering trying an ez out kind of tool, but i’ve heard the success with such things is very low and that it’s quite possible I could make things worse.  I also considered trying to drill it out, but an a little apprehensive about messing up the threads.  The collective wisdom of youtube (ha ha) appears to point towards welding on a bit to the broken bolt, and then a nut.  …and using that with an impact wrench to get the thing free.  Regrettably I have no experience welding, nor do I have welding equipment, an impact wrench or a compressor.

So yeah, what to do, what to do.  If it were a broken bolt that were easily accessible, and in something not quite so expensive as a engine block, i’d be less apprehensive about going at it myself with a drill.  But give the placement i’m not sure that’s a good idea. "

Picture of the offending bolt below.  Anyone got any experience dealing with this particular problem?  I'm assuming this is not the first WRX that has suffered this issue (said friend lives in New England, so corrosion is a fact of life there).  

Am I correctly seeing that the power steering pump bracket is still in place, and that the bolt protrudes from the block and sheared off at the head?

Is there any way to get enough other power steering bracketry unfastened to be able to lift it straight up off and leave the shank of the broken bolt exposed above the block?

Or are we actually looking at the block with the bracket or pump or whatever already out of the way, sheared off flush with the actual block?

Find a welder (the profession not the tool) or a friend with one (the tool not the profession) and weld a nut on. 

If no luck, drill it out.  If lucky/careful enough he might be able to get it out and save the hole.  Use reverse-cut drill bits. 

If it doesn't work, buy a helicoil kit or pay someone with one to just helicoil it. If the new hole isn't perfect and the bolt won't go on, just drill out the hole in the compressor a little 

it isn't in a great spot but it certainly could be waaaaay worse

In reply to Ransom :

Yup.  That's the block, with the pump removed.  So there's just a little bolt sticking out.  it's sheared off close to flush

First of all, understand this-. If a bolt breaks coming out, it's your problem.  If it breaks going in, shops problem.

Now, find a competent welder, experienced at removing broken bolts, and have him remove it. I'd be surprised if it takes an hour.  $1200 is an ass covering of the highest order.

Oh and this- don't make it worse with hamfisted attempts.  

Have him look up mobile welders in his area and start making phone calls.  Someone will come out and do it

I'd recommend pulling the intake manifold and that coolant crossover pipe for better access, it's pretty straight forward on a Subaru as everything is easy to get at on top of the motor and that bolt is a bit buried in there. If he isn't comfortable doing that himself then there is probably an independent Subaru shop that can easily fix that up as well as swap the power steering pump for less than $1200. 

On that power steering pump, depending on the year of the car the low pressure return enters the pump through a plastic fitting that relies on a single bolt to hold it in and an O-ring to seal it. That O-ring gets brittle over time and starts to let air into the system, when that happens the pump groans and the steering feels terrible. The pump is still fine and even that plastic return line fitting (I've read the metal fitting versions can also have this problem), the fitting just needs to be removed and the O-ring replaced with one that can be sourced from the local hardware store. After that just do a proper system bleed which involves filling the reservoir, jacking the front end up and cycling the steering wheel from lock to lock with the car off slowly. My 07 was an as-is special and this was one of the simple issues it had, the pump was covered in fluid and groaned like crazy, a couple of dollars and a bit of time and all was good.

Good luck,

Adam