That moment when the bolt suddenly feels soft and unresponsive as you apply torque, wondering if the bolt is a little too tight. The feeling of having done it is similar to that of standing up and getting run over.
I'm sure everyone has had the bitter experience of cleaning the head of a bolt at least once.
There are many reasons for bolts to tarnish, including bolts that have not been tinkered with for years, rusted bolts, and off-the-shelf tools. They should have just let them soak in oil.
You don't want to listen to such lectures after you've done it, saying that it's because you let the bolt rust so much, that the tool size isn't right, and that it's important to take measures before it cleans. But there are many ways to extract a cleaned bolt. Various special tools are available for this purpose. There is no need to despair. A typical example is the pliers with special jagged teeth, called Screwsaurus. Depending on the size of the bolt, most bolts can be handled with this tool.
However, this is only the case when the bolt has a protruding head. The Screwsaurus cannot be used on bolts that are elusive, such as flat countersunk screws. The worst case is when you clean a bolt in a deep hole, and a pliers-type tool will not help. And, there are a lot of bolts in such holes in motorcycle parts, let alone DIY furniture. It is one of the sad endings to go to a motorcycle shop in tears when you can no longer do anything about it.
In this issue of MOTO HACK, we introduce the work done by Koban-san, whose bolt brake caliper pad pins at the back of such holes have become cleaned. Brake calipers tend to get dirty and are easy to clean. Mr. KOBAN also completely cleaned the hexagonal bolt at the back of the hole, and just when everything was about to go wrong, an unfamiliar tool called a "Screw Mole" appeared on the scene. As you can imagine from the name, this is a screwdriver bit made by the engineers who manufacture Screw Mole and is specially designed for use with hexagonal bolts.
Its construction is simple: a bit with a reverse-threaded thread bites into a bolt to loosen it. This tool is similar to the reverse-threaded drill extractor used by mechanics, but its feature is that it only uses hand power. When a drill is used to break a bolt or extractor, the drill may penetrate the bolt and destroy the threads, or the extractor itself may break. However, with "Screw Mole," there are no such worries at all.
It's a great tool to have in your toolbox as a fail-safe in case of an accident!
Cleaned pad pin rescue
From the maintenance diary of Mr. Koban, October 06, 2022.
Work Process 1
I completely cleaned the head of the pad pin while trying to replace the front brake pad.
As a result of futile resistance and trial and error, the hole widened so much that it could no longer be turned with an Allen wrench.
Think about the next move before it becomes irreversible.
Work Process 2
Throw in a 5mm screw mole.
The tip is a reverse tap, and if turned in the loosening direction, the screw mole will dive into the bolt.
The special handle in the photo was useless and was turned with a long monkey wrench to apply torque.
Work Process 3
Somehow rescued.
Comparison of old and new pad pins.
The work itself takes 10 minutes. The total time for useless trial and error and thinking is about one hour.
Thank you for your valuable ideas, "Mr. Koban" who introduced the "Cleaned Pad Pin Rescue".
*The articles on MOTO HACK are composed and reprinted from user contributions. The effects and methods described are at the discretion of the user, and Webike is not responsible for any problems that may occur.