Today’s project was entirely unplanned. I snapped the head off a seatpost collar bolt while readying the Bontrager Ti Lite, the bike Danusia bought me ’93 as a replacement for my stolen Gary Fisher Procaliber, to receive the wheel with the special hub I built and posted about Thursday. The collar had* a machined slot with too narrow a division, preventing enough tightening to hold the seatpost in place before the clamp’s metal edges touched. That fact unknown to me at the time, I over-torqued the bolt, snapping its head off with a loud POP.
Of course, I don’t have the proper tool to back the beheaded bolt out of the collar.
Fail?
No, pause.
Hey, my round file . . .
I could back the screw out by turning it with a pass of the round file.
Presto. Screw came out in 2 minutes. The threads on the screw just below the file tip are brighter from the file taking a bit of metal with each pass. For real gear-heads, this worked because the bolt head side of the clamp has no threads, rendering the ruined threads on the screw irrelevant to its removal and leaving friction to its work.
The following pix are just gratuitous.
Helios, my biking talisman.
Cary~
*I filed the clamp slot wider by inserting sandpaper into clamp slot and going into sander mode for about 5 . . . minutes.
Fantastic shots ! Really amazing! =)
Thank you. Much appreciated! Best, Cary~