The drill-out option is still there, Norman. Like I said, I went into this alum adventure heads up thinking (hoping) it might be a simple 2 hour simmer, tap gets eaten & carry on based on others experience who did this successfully. The special coated tap was a bit of curveball even I didn't recognize as potentially important to the outcome. So right now its just full disclosure providing info in case someone else has this issue one day & can learn from it.
The tap coating may well be contributing to the blackening because apparently nobody else has experienced this & doesn't seem related to the water or my choice in alum supplier. And it might be slowing the erosion process down if only the end core is exposed. But I think I can see progress along the flutes, which would suggest it must be through the coating. The tap engaged with aluminum is another matter, logically it will be the last to go.
I'm not exactly how I would build a dam around the offending hole, but it crossed my mind. I guess the dam would have to be aluminum to be 'alum solution proof' but my question was more about the liquid seal/adhesive. Would that then eat away (yet another rabbit hole). Then assuming I had a dam, how would I maintain temperature? Most people who did this successfully mentioned 'near boiling' & maybe related agitation is required. The dam route seemed more difficult.
I did a complete clean last night & all the black coloration seems to be removable. All the tapped threads fit M3 bolts nicely so I don't think the aluminum is being adversely affected by alum bath. I did some spot checks on the facet dimensions & cylinder skirt bores which should be within 0.0005". So far that is looking like no distortion which was my fear. I'm not sure if alum saturated water raises boiling point but lets call it sub 100C bath temp. I'm hoping that would have no adverse effect on aluminum itself tempering wise, but not sure there. I don't want to touch anything with fine wet-o-dry until final cleanup because its just going to darken again with every bath treatment.
If I have to drill it out, contemplating a carbide EM (its a blind hole), then tap it with say a M5, insert aluminum bolt as a plug with permanent Locktite, then tap that with M3. If that M3 tap breaks I will jump off a cliff
..to be continued