the allen socket of one of the bolts that fastens the brake lever to the bars on my bike is all rounded out. I’m out of ideas to remove it.
I have a bolt extractor but can’t try it because the brand new drill bit won’t even make a dent in the bolt. Have also tried cutting slots in it for a screw driver but I think its too tight for that.
Any suggestions or tools to remove stripped socket heads?
Hit it with PB blast and let it sit for a few. Then try drying it off w/ a rag and using vice grips. You can also try using a punch and a hammer and getting it to turn that way.
Use a bolt extractor
Not an ez-out
proper tools > *
/thread
Liquid wrench or PB, if you’ve got some sockets you dont care about and enough space take one thats just too small get it on the head and pound the piss out of it until its on there.
can you get at it from the bottom to put like vice grips on the end and try to spin it up a lil so you can then grab thet head the same way.i know on my bike there is a lil on the bottom of the break but not a lot but still some that it could work… and there has to be a bit that you should be able to take off the head and then fig it out once off…
garick, could you snap a pic of said bolt to give us a good idea at what space you’re working with?
It’s an allen, right?
I think keep working at it with a drill might be the only course unless you can manage to force a larger allen into the spot.
hacksaw/dremel a slot in the top and use a screwdriver
edit: nevermind. reading > me
I have every size bolt extractor and ez out you can imagine. If you are ever near Cheektowaga, you can stop over and we’ll get it out.
Tap the equivilant size in metric/sae wrench into it. Also, don’t use those worthless L-shaped allen wrenches either. Use a socket and and a long extension to make sure you’re only applying turning force, not lateral force.
socket head or button head?
thats the best I can do at the moment but you get the idea, there is not much room to get anything on it and everything is completely round.
Will those extractors be able to grab a round head? I’m not sure why the drill bit didn’t work the first time but I will give that another go and then see if I can get some pliers on it with the head gone or something.
they could grab it but there isnt any room at all to get the extractor around it
it looks like you may need to grind it out and get a new handle
sawzaw (sp) it or drill through it and replace it with a new bolt if you have one laying around
or what if you heated it up and then melted an allen key to it in order for the shape to form or weld onto it… probably a dumb idea but it may work
drill through it.
weld a allen key to it
How stuck is the bolt? It was tight enough to strip the Allen head but was that already worn or were you using the wrong sized wrench? Basically trying to figure out if it will spin out pretty easily if you get a grip on it or if you’ll need big torque.
I’d hit it with some pbblast then the next day clean off the oil and drill it with a reverse drill bit slightly larger than the stripped hole. Good chance when the reverse bit grabs it will spin right out. If it doesn’t at least once you’ve drilled off the head you can switch to a smaller bit and drill out the bolt. Retap and you’re done.
Or, if you have access to a welder weld a nut to the top of your stripped head and back it out with a wrench.
Ohh, derr, you were using the right variant, not because it is a round head but because it is counterbored.
In that case the ez-out should do the trick, you shouldn’t need to drill either. Use a larger extractor, hammer it in a bit and it should come right out.
Not a fan of ez-outs. You’re taking something that was stuck bad enough to strip in the first place and risking snapping off a metal device harder than any known drill bit in the hole.
If the head stripped because the wrong sized wrench was used maybe, because it might back out easily.