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When I bought my Sportster it was plastered with racing stickers and such like. But all those and other stuff has been removed by me. One of the stupid things he did was to put plastic " Brembo" covers over all the brakes so that they gave the impression of being the real deal. But only a kid would be fooled as they are the original BMW brakes behind it. So at the weekend I decided to take the wheels off and remove them. They were held in place by epoxy resin.
I had to put an almighty effort into the first bolt as I discovered the previous plonker owner had put locktight or something similar onto the the threads. The force and leverage I used was immense.
After much sweat and swearing I completed the front two wheels, however when I tried the first of the rear wheels, the force was too much for the first bolt and it sheared off, thus leaving half of the bolt in the hub. I then sheared a second on the same wheel, not wishing to shear any more on that side I went to the other side and sheared one on the other. I gave up then.
So I have a problem.....................how to remove the others without sheaing them and also how to remove the sheared halves from the hub.
I have a thought but would welcome some siggestions from some seasoned resourceful builders.
applying some heat may melt the thread lock a bit.
as for getting the sheared bolts out of the hub, is there enough sticking out the back to get some mole grips on and twist it through all the way. People always suggest drilling bolts out but I've never had any luck doing that and usually end up with lots of blunt drills
Yes, I have thought of heat to try to loosen it and yes there should be enough of the bolt sticking out to get mole grips on. BUT...................I don,t think they will be man enough or that they will grip tight enough to tremove them as the leverage and effort was immense. I had a normal tyre lever ( about 15 ins long with a 1 ft long pipe over that ) and stood on it. A lot of leverage, so I don,t think mole grips will do it.
But thanks for your thoughts
hi Dennis, Had a similar problem with the donor wheels that were well and truly suck on to the hubs. Used my local friendly garage contact to use various techniques to free them, some bolts heated up, some frozen with a spray ???Huh?? forget to ask what it was, some removed using 3ft long breakers bars by the apprentice grease monkey, who loved every minute of it(bars were bending to an eyewatering level!!), so might be worth that route if you have a local friendly garage, if of course you can drive the car there!!
Thanks Bob ( if thats your name ) I had thought of that route as well, so have provisionally booked it in with my local garage next week that looks after my day car. He too is wondering what to do. If I can solve it before I will but in desperation it will have to go to them, thats assuming I can get replacement tapered bolts. Don,t know how many I need beside the three that are broken.
Still worse things happen at sea, so they say.
People always suggest drilling bolts out but I've never had any luck doing that and usually end up with lots of blunt drills
Don't dismiss the idea of drilling them out all together.
File a good flat end on the brocken bolt and then centre punch it as accurately as possible.
Get hold of some really good drills (one of the best investments I ever made) and drill a pilot hole from the centre punch mark. Then drill through several times with increasing drill diameters up to the diameter of the bolt until the bolt finally gives in. Even if your centre punch is off centre, when your drill reaches the edge of the bolt at some point on its circumference the rest of it is likely to collapse.
No guarantees but its worked for me on a numbner of occassions
If there is enough broken stud showing weld a nut onto the end. The welding will give it a good bit of heat treatment, then try unscrewing the welded nut.
If there is enough broken stud showing weld a nut onto the end. The welding will give it a good bit of heat treatment, then try unscrewing the welded nut.
I agree. The combination of heating from the welding and a nut on the end should do the trick. In the past heat alone has worked every time for me - but you need to get them very hot - dull red if possible.
I have a worse problem in the doner I am stripping for my new project. I have steel studs sheared in an ali casting (heads). Think of me when you have succeeded....
Like others, I think heat is the best answer especially if its loctite holding them in.
Most thread locks I've come across will soften or even disintegrate/evaporate with some heat. I use a butane/propane hand held blow lamp, nothing special. Getting the broken studs out will be a bit more of a challenge but you'll be able to get a lot more heat applied before trying with some pipe stilsons.
