[DonBenito]

Got my rear Cycleracks rack today and couldn't wait to get it installed.



The right hand allen key bolt (from the top of the passenger footpeg bracket) was a little tight, but it gave in easy enough and backed right out for me.



The left hand allen key bolt though, different story. It turned a cheap allen key into a corkscrew without so much as budging.



I got my nice craftsman allen key set out and I was torqueing it so hard that I thought it would break. Afraid that it might break and slice open my hand, I grabbed it with some vice grips.



The vice grips gave me just enough leverage to completely strip out the hexagon! Allen keys don't work so well in a circular hole.



So, drill and extract it was! Except, the bolt is harder than the Irwin extractor screw I bought at Ace Hardware, so the bolt in turn stripped the threads off of the extractor screw!



I took the cheap extractor back to Ace, and strolled next door to Autozone to buy a harder extractor.



The high carbon extractor had plenty of bite into the relatively soft bolt, and just enough brittleness to snap in half as soon as I put a little muscle into turning it!



So now I have a soft bolt seized up in my left passenger peg bracket with an incredibly hard high-carbon steel extractor tip lodged in the center of it that I have no way of drilling out.





The only thing I can think to do now is ride my TW200 to a local machine shop and let a professional take a crack at it.



If anyone else has a better (read- cheaper!) suggestion I'm open to ideas!

 

[rm_hm]

Can you take a dremel or parting wheel and cut a slot across it ? Then you wack it with a impact driver and a screwdriver tip.

Get some penetrating oil in there and tap it for awhile with a hammer. May help wake it up.

 

[jvt]

A 09 with the same rack is on seattle craigs.

sorry but ,I have the same problems sometimes.

 

[flingwing1969]

Got my rear Cycleracks rack today and couldn't wait to get it installed.



The right hand allen key bolt (from the top of the passenger footpeg bracket) was a little tight, but it gave in easy enough and backed right out for me.



The left hand allen key bolt though, different story. It turned a cheap allen key into a corkscrew without so much as budging.

Sorry Don, no help here, at this point. I had the same experience with one of my allen bolts when I installed mine. I quit quickly and used my impact driver and an allen bit and even then it took probably 7 hits to get it to break free. PITA. You have my empathy my brother.

You'll love the rack when you get it on.

 

[DonBenito]

A 09 with the same rack is on seattle craigs.

sorry but ,I have the same problems sometimes.

Somebody call Homeland Security! Looks like we've got a hijacker on our board!

 

[DonBenito]

Sorry Don, no help here, at this point. I had the same experience with one of my allen bolts when I installed mine. I quit quickly and used my impact driver and an allen bit and even then it took probably 7 hits to get it to break free. PITA. You have my empathy my brother.

You'll love the rack when you get it on.

It's good to know I haven't been the only one with this issue.



Thanks to Rich too.



I've been wanting a good excuse to buy a dremel set anyway, and the impact driver is like another 10 bucks so I guess that's justifiable. I've broken more than 10 bucks worth of extractor bits today!



If worse comes to worst I suppose I could spring for a diamond carbide bit and drill out and re-tap the whole thing.



I might just get a whole bunch of new tools out of this situation!

 

[retmotor]

It's good to know I haven't been the only one with this issue.



Thanks to Rich too.



I've been wanting a good excuse to buy a dremel set anyway, and the impact driver is like another 10 bucks so I guess that's justifiable. I've broken more than 10 bucks worth of extractor bits today!



If worse comes to worst I suppose I could spring for a diamond carbide bit and drill out and re-tap the whole thing.



I might just get a whole bunch of new tools out of this situation!

Regarding impact drivers, I used to have a few Suzuki Samurais and the bodies on those things are put together almost exclusively with phillips head fasteners. I caused myself a lot of frustration and unnecessary work using inexpensive impact drivers. I think I spent $80 on a MAC and it was instantly easy to remove the fasteners. The difference is night and day -- get, beg, or borrow a good one, if you need it. Oh, and the bits break too, even on the expensive ones, but nothing like the cheap ones.



I can't see your problem in my mind's eye, not exactly anyway. I'm guessing you don't have enough fastener left to tack weld a nut onto what is left of it? If you can, and you can get a good bite with the weld, you should be able to put a wrench on the nut and back it out.

 

[assquatch20]

Before I read to the extractor part, I had you a plan. Now I'd say welding a nut or having the machine shop use one of those crazy laser things on it is your quickest way.



The Dremel way could work as well. I had a case cover strip all the phillips heads one time, so I figured I'd grind them until they were studs, pull the cover, then put vice grips on what was left. I found that the friction heated them up to the point of loosening by hand before I got any of them totally ground. Maybe get yourself a tiny butane torch. Sometimes a Bic lighter, patience, and some penetrating oil gives you that extra push. If a Dremel slot wouldn't work, and you're comfortable with it, grind two sides of the big allen head off so that a wrench or vice grips could grab the outside flat. Those particular screws are large enough that it may work.



There's a lot of ways to approach it so read around the net and get creative if you have to.

 

[DonBenito]

Thank you everybody for the advice!



In the end I think it was a combination of letting penetrating oil soak in for a few days, some loosening effects of impact pressure, and leverage from securely clamped vice grips that got the job done.



See the pics in Cycleracks Success!