Tap or helicoil? Or....?

[John_Mc]

It pays to wait until you have the right tool for the job rather than forge ahead in a chaotic fashion. Case in point:

I wanted to remove the old bump stop from my trailing arm (the rubber just fell right off) but on the remaining disk there is no flat surface to engage. My big "vice-grips" were hardly big enough and since they are "hecho en China" they were junk and couldn't grip enough to loosen the rusted bolt. So in a fit of stupidity, I decided to drill it out, or at least drill it to weaken it's grip (there is very little logic to that reasoning, I know). Well before I ever achieved success or failure with that attempt, I came to my senses and decided a large pipe wrench might do the job (i had to go to my office to get it, which is why I didn't use it initially). I used it on the non-drilled TA bump stop first and voila! it worked. So I then used it on the drilled bump stop and "snap"! So, I tried to drill out the broken bolt and got to the point where I worried I was affecting the threads on one side and still had too much rusted bolt stuck to keep proceeding. SOOOOOO, to make a long story less long, would a tap work to "scoop out" the remaining bolt or should I just drill the rest of it out, threads and all, and put in a helicoil?

I know this is kind of a lame inquiry, but I'm not too familiar with all the machining possibilities available to our hobby so I have to ask some silly questions sometimes. Sorry for the long winded story.

 

[mikespain]

HI- if you have drilled off center then a tap will not work,you could try using an ezi-out (like a tap but with a tapered left hand thread,plenty of freeing agent etc.there are quite afew threads on here about broken bolt removal,good luck

 

[fogdot]

Heli-Coils are great. just be sure to hold the drill straight, perpendicular to the surface.
I've used Heli-Coils on motorcycles, cars and airplanes.

 

[Tinster]

The same thing happened to one of my bump stops.
A monkey wrench snapped it off.

I drilled it out and installed a new one with industrial
epoxy to compensate for the oversized hole. So far so good.

I might use a helicoil for a bump stop but never for a
trailing arm. I had a bad experience with a wheel coming off.

best of luck.

d

 

[BobbyD]

An alternative to heli-coils are Keene-serts. If you go to www.mcmaster.com and search on "thread locking metal insert" you find them as the key-locking type. They come with thin, thick or extra-thick walls depending on the application. They don't require any special drill bits like a Heli-coil and the tabs lock everything in place. I know guys that have replaced every TA stud with these and after thousands of miles have had no problems. I had one stripped thread in my TA and just did that one.

 

[Tim Tucker]

Thanks for the Keene-serts info. They look great. As much time as I spend on the McMaster-Carr site I should have stumbled onto them...
Tim

 

[Dave Russell]

HI- if you have drilled off center then a tap will not work,you could try using an ezi-out (like a tap but with a tapered left hand thread,

Ezi-Outs are kind of lame. By nature, as they expand to grip the inside of the hole, they expand the OD of the bolt also & make it tighter in the hole. They are very brittle & break easily. The remaining stump is so brittle that it's very hard to remove.

If you were starting from scratch, drilling progressively larger holes with a LH drill bit will usually cause the remaining bolt to unscrew & come right out. The drill bites in the unscrew direction.
D

 

[Trick6]

Bob:
Thanks for the fastener site, I can now inventory my fasteners and order what is needed.
Al

 

[Guest]

It still amazes me that Triumph would use a SAE fine thread stud in soft aluminum. When I bought this particular TR6, the DPO had used JB-Weld to hold them in! I used Helicoils.