What an afternoon!!

[Darth_1100S]

I'm now sat with a very nice Vodka & Orange, I've had a lovely long soak in the bath followed by a shower shave and sh......erm we won't go there! Missus Darth made me a very tasty Lasagne for our evening meal, and now all is right with the world.

This afternoon though, things were far from right. I have spent hours wrestling with a sheared disc mounting bolt on my front wheel. To avoid anyone else having the same problem I thought it would be jolly decent of me let you know what happened.

I got some S/S disc mounting bolts from Rob Vincent a few days ago and decided to swap them around today. The old ones were a bit tight to get out as they're put in with loctite, but a good tight fitting torx socket shifted them all without having to resort to heat. I thought it best to change one at a time rather than remove them all. I started on the first one but my mistake was not running the new bolt all the way in first to make sure the thread was clear. I put it in a short way and then put some loctite (270) on the bolt thread. It wound in ok to about 2/3rds it's length, then started getting a bit tight. I tried to back it off to get it out to see what the problem was, but it was stuck solid, no amount of heaving, heating or pulling at it with a stiltson wrench would budge it. I thought eventually it was starting to move but the bugger just sheared off.

I had no choice then but to cut it off flush and drill it out. Problem No 2 - the wheel was too big to go on my pillar drill. I was thinking of taking it and having the tyre removed but in the end I decided to drill it with an electric hand drill (dangerous!) I managed to get a small hole dead centre and just kept pushing bigger dia drills down 'til the walls of the bolt were thin enough to break up.

When I eventually got it all out and blew the hole out with the airline I ran an M8 tap down the hole to clean the thread up. I then ran the tap down all the other holes. There was some hardened thread locking compound in every hole, I can only assume that this had reacted with the fresh loctite in some way causing it to harden very rapidly. It's all sorted now, I just need to get another bolt.

Just a word of warning to anyone else who's changing the disc bolts for new ones (I know a few of you have got new ones from Rob) before you put them in run an M8 tap carefully down each hole to clear out any old shite in there. Don't even think of putting it together without loctitie either - the bolts are only torqued up to 21Nm

Cheers - Dave the Dufus!

BTW tomorrow I'm making and fitting a oil cooler grille - wonder what will go wrong there then!

[Rob B]

Arrgg,

Feel for you as I did the same stunt when fitting the footpeg lowering kit.

Loctite is Anerobic, it goes off when you exclude air. The old loctite means we have the tightest possible thread gap, bu**er all air, so the Loctite goes off in seconds.

Live and learn, I run a tap down all threads now and clear the old crap out.


Glad yours turned out OK.

Rgds,

Rob

[Darth_1100S]

Rob, Aaargh indeed. The embarassing thing is I've spent most of my life involved in engineering in one way or another, so I should have known better! I'll just put it down to another one of lifes little "Teach me a lesson" sessions

Dave

[Jason M]

What a Bitch. I just hate that moment when you have the nut in the spanner...and the rest of the bolt in the thread. I sheared 2 of the bolts on my collector box last year. Bloody stupid lickle feckers and too flippin small I reckon, give up a yank and whoopdy-do off they come sans thread. Took the collector box to a reccommended 'engineer' and he couldn't get them out - reckons they had gone to hard and reccomended a local car tuning place that uses a laser to get them out - ummm, lasers = big bucks me thinks so I did what you did. Started with a 2mm and worked up but was a bit off centre so spent 2 hours filing with those little what-yamacallit files using the zorst gasget as a template for the hole, then just put a nut and bolt through. funny how the simplest jobs can turn into the biggest tit's up operation you can think of.

Mate of mine was under his K and thought he'd change his plugs when his wife was out when 'whoopdy-do' off snaps the plug. He managed to drill a pilot and use one of those stud ectractors (used them on my zaust - waste of bloody money and a bastard to get out when they snap off and you finally admit to the enevitable drilling) and managed to extricate himself from the shit... about 4 hours later!

Better luck must be on it's way!

Jason

[Darth_1100S]

Jason, like I said before I've been around engineering for most of my life, Started as a marine engineer, I've restored classic cars, and spannered on amatuer rallies etc. One piece of advice I'll give freely to anyone - NEVER use a stud extractor. I've never found one yet that works! If the bugger breaks in the hole you've just doubled your problem. I always prefer to drill sheared bolts / studs out. As long as I take the time to get the centre pop dead centre it's usually ok, and if you're careful the inner thread can be saved.

I had the same with my cat bolts last year - sheared one off! Now they've been put in with lotsa lovely copperslip grease. Done the same with the headers, took the studs out and greased em up with high temp grease.

Dave.

[Jason M]

Jason, like I said before I've been around engineering for most of my life, Started as a marine engineer, I've restored classic cars, and spannered on amatuer rallies etc. One piece of advice I'll give freely to anyone - NEVER use a stud extractor. I've never found one yet that works! If the bugger breaks in the hole you've just doubled your problem. I always prefer to drill sheared bolts / studs out. As long as I take the time to get the centre pop dead centre it's usually ok, and if you're careful the inner thread can be saved.

I had the same with my cat bolts last year - sheared one off! Now they've been put in with lotsa lovely copperslip grease. Done the same with the headers, took the studs out and greased em up with high temp grease.

Dave.

I need to get me one of those pillar drills I reckon. I'm fed up with drill bits skidding about all over the place, causing me more problems than I stared with

Be prepared for lots of engineering type questions from now on then mate!

[Darth_1100S]

Jason, no probs - if I can be of help anytime, but don't forget I'm the guy who shears bolts - a lot ......

A Pillar drill is probably the best tool you'll ever buy. I inherited mine from my dad a few years ago. I found it lurking in the back of his shed all covered in rust and siezed up. I "nicked" it and brought it home, stripped it down freed everything off, fitted new bearings and a new chuck, and got the electric motor working again. It's a really old solid thing dating from the early 50s. It could really do with an overhaul now, it get hammered here - I'll do it when I get time.

http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ridgew ... m=ef38.jpg

http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ridgew ... dnm=11.jpg

G'waaan Jase - treat yerself!!

[crucial]

Dave, did exactly the same as you when I replaced the bolts on mine, even used the same method of extraction. Also managed to bend a couple of Torx bits getting the original bastards out I've only used about 2/3 the torque setting putting them back in.

[Darth_1100S]

Hi paul, did your bearing and pivots arrive in this mornings post?

It's a bugger when them little gits get stuck eh? I've done a bit of studying of the opposite side yesterday before I put the new bolts in there and I think I know why my bolt got so damned stuck.

If you look carefully down the hole you'll see the thread stops about an inch or so down. Then there is a short gap and the thread re-starts. I reckon the two threads are slightly out of pitch so that the bolt gets tighter at the very end of it's travel. In other words there is a locking effect on the bolt, thus ensuring it won't vibrate lose. Rob B was right about the loctite - the tighter the thread the quicker it will "go off" due to the lack of air. So, because the thead was tight anyway and the loctite was in there -result, a chuffing pain in the a*se

Dave.

[Jason M]

Hi paul, did your bearing and pivots arrive in this mornings post?

It's a bugger when them little gits get stuck eh? I've done a bit of studying of the opposite side yesterday before I put the new bolts in there and I think I know why my bolt got so damned stuck.

If you look carefully down the hole you'll see the thread stops about an inch or so down. Then there is a short gap and the thread re-starts. I reckon the two threads are slightly out of pitch so that the bolt gets tighter at the very end of it's travel. In other words there is a locking effect on the bolt, thus ensuring it won't vibrate lose. Rob B was right about the loctite - the tighter the thread the quicker it will "go off" due to the lack of air. So, because the thead was tight anyway and the loctite was in there -result, a chuffing pain in the a*se

Dave.

Anything that I know is loctited, I always give 30 secs with a flame thrower first, that usually does the trick

[crucial]

I leave before the post so they will probably be there when I get home, thanks again

As for the disc bolts.......I ran a tap down every one of the buggers before I put the stainless ones in, they're Allen head instead of torx so I was taking no chances. BMW's idea of safe is bloody ridiculous, I can now remove the discs without resorting to drilling equipment