Word to the Wise ...
Posted: Mon May 04, 2015 10:28 am
- DON'T USE RED LOCTITE ON ROTOR BOLTS -
I got a call from a friend last night that was having trouble removing his rotor bolts from his front wheel. Joe has a custom fatboy and has ALL his work done at the local Harley Boutique. I'm not sure why he tried to do anything, like I said he has all his work done at the shop.
He apparently had been "trying" for a couple hours and all five of the bolts were buggered up to some degree. I told him to bring the wheel by the house since my tools are here and not sure what I may need. I used a torch with a very small nozzle to direct heat to just the bolt(s). After the heat a used an impact driver to give them all a good wack after heating. I got four of the bolt out just using heat and impact and a little effort. The last bolt was a BITCH! I knew it was going to be so I saved it for last! I drilled the center of the bolt (have to be very careful to drill center and perpendicular so not to drill through the hub) and tried to use an easy out ... no go, broke the easy out. Now I'm into hour two working on this and getting pretty frustrated. I was finally able to get the easy out OUT and I redrilled the bolt again with a larger bit! It's a 3/8 bolt and I used a 13/64 bit. There is/wasn't a lot of room for error. After redrilling I used a larger easy out and it came ...
I was very happy to see that after all the BS the threads were all perfect, no damage at all. I thought I was going to have to retap the hole. I ran a tap down to clean up all the threads and sent him on his way ...
I told him be sure to tell them if they have to use loctite to use only the blue med strength and don't cover the entire bolt - a little goes a long way!!!
OK my rant is over ... I think ... just working on building Karma Credits ...
I got a call from a friend last night that was having trouble removing his rotor bolts from his front wheel. Joe has a custom fatboy and has ALL his work done at the local Harley Boutique. I'm not sure why he tried to do anything, like I said he has all his work done at the shop.
He apparently had been "trying" for a couple hours and all five of the bolts were buggered up to some degree. I told him to bring the wheel by the house since my tools are here and not sure what I may need. I used a torch with a very small nozzle to direct heat to just the bolt(s). After the heat a used an impact driver to give them all a good wack after heating. I got four of the bolt out just using heat and impact and a little effort. The last bolt was a BITCH! I knew it was going to be so I saved it for last! I drilled the center of the bolt (have to be very careful to drill center and perpendicular so not to drill through the hub) and tried to use an easy out ... no go, broke the easy out. Now I'm into hour two working on this and getting pretty frustrated. I was finally able to get the easy out OUT and I redrilled the bolt again with a larger bit! It's a 3/8 bolt and I used a 13/64 bit. There is/wasn't a lot of room for error. After redrilling I used a larger easy out and it came ...
I was very happy to see that after all the BS the threads were all perfect, no damage at all. I thought I was going to have to retap the hole. I ran a tap down to clean up all the threads and sent him on his way ...
I told him be sure to tell them if they have to use loctite to use only the blue med strength and don't cover the entire bolt - a little goes a long way!!!
OK my rant is over ... I think ... just working on building Karma Credits ...