Rock Strike on Kickstand

[AZRedhawk44]

I was out on a 3 day motorcycle trip with friends, riding to the Verde River in central AZ and then across the Bradshaws up to Old Senator Hwy and Prescott, and off through Prescott National Forest to a tiny mining town called Bagdad, then back home.

About 5-10 miles from our planned camp site on Friday, my front tire kicked up a rock into my kickstand and broke off the bolt/pin that holds one end of the spring.  Bike is disabled by the sensor down there and won't run unless the kickstand is up.  I dig out my tool kit to get some zip ties to hold the stand up so I can limp out, knowing my weekend plans are now cancelled by the damage.  My riding buddies note I'm not keeping up and circle back for me, and we find that one of them has a compromised engine case.  Evidently one of his crash bars was hammered in enough that engine vibration caused it to rub a hole in the engine case, and he was leaking oil badly when the motor was off.

We patched up his case with JB Weld, zip tied my kickstand, and camped out for the night since we were already out there anyways, and cancelled the rest of the ride in order to repair damaged bikes.

I get home and put the bike up on a spool lift and take the kickstand off.  I have a stuck bolt in the cast aluminum kickstand arm.  I tried an easy out, which wasn't easy and didn't come out.  Net result was the easy out broke off in the hole I drilled in the bolt.

I ordered an X-Y vise for my drill press, and I'm going to try drilling out the combined easy-out and stuck bolt.  I also ordered a set of tungsten carbide tipped drill bits, as well as a couple of HSS milling bits.  My ancient beat up press has a tiny bit of wobble in its chuck, but it's what I've got to work with.

Any suggestions on better plans?

[tokugawa]

Do a search for using alum to dissolve a steel bolt  out of aluminum.

Drilling is going to be a bitch - not easy with a bolt, but a hardened easy-out is an order of magnitude harder.
A straight flute solid carbide drill in a mill would be about the only way I would try it. And  grinding a starter center so the bit does not wander is key.

 Really sort of surprised a rock being kicked up would break off a bolt -must have had a stress point on it like a notch?

 

[Bogie]

Can u get a left hand drill bit and run the drill in reverse? And soak it good with pb blaster.

[tokugawa]

Some discussion on this subject here
  https://www.practicalmachinist.com/forum/threads/can-you-get-a-carbide-drill-through-a-broken-easy-out.402294/#post-3929551
 reply # 19 has a recipe for the alum concentration. I think they build a little dam around the offending bolt with clay or something.

 I just went through something similar on a brake rotor hub on the DR- six 8mm bolts- three of which had to be drilled-and the wheel was too big to center on the mill or press so I drilled them by hand- used a screw machine bit held in an old "port-align" drill holder- for a cheap tool, those things are an amazingly useful device.

The trick to using easy outs is to drill a small pilot dead center, then drill with a larger drill to take out almost all the bolt except the threads. This relieves tension on the bolt, and allows for the use of the largest easy out that will fit.

A machine shop could do this for you, an EDM machine could do it- although I know next to nothing about using one.

[230RN]

Alum is (or was) also used to stop bleeding from shaving nicks in the form of a "styptic pencil."

[Nick1911]

I have had success welding a nut on top of the broken bolt, and twisting it out with a wrench.  What kind of welding equipment do you have?

Drilling it out is going to be a chore.  You can do it with a solid carbide twist drill, but keeping it from wandering will suck.

The machinist who trained me showed me an old technique to regrind old broken carbide tooling to drill out taps.  Works surprisingly well.

I never had much luck with the alum thing.

[Brad Johnson]

Have photos of the offending part? That might help with strateegery formulation.

Brad

[AZRedhawk44]

I have had success welding a nut on top of the broken bolt, and twisting it out with a wrench.  What kind of welding equipment do you have?

Drilling it out is going to be a chore.  You can do it with a solid carbide twist drill, but keeping it from wandering will suck.

The machinist who trained me showed me an old technique to regrind old broken carbide tooling to drill out taps.  Works surprisingly well.

I never had much luck with the alum thing.

This won't work, because the bolt is recessed inside a threaded boss on the kickstand arm.

Picture attached.

Will have to look up that alum trick.

[Brad Johnson]

Have you tried taking a small pointed punch and lightly tapping around the edges (counterclockwise force vector)? Sometimes that will do the trick. Just make sure you don't peen the threads and make things worse.

You might try gently heating the aluminum around the bolt. Shouldn't take much. A canister-style torch would be plenty. A heat gun might work, too. It will expand more than you think even when little more than uncomfortably warm to the touch, maybe enough to let you spin it free with nothing more than a pick.

Brad

[AZRedhawk44]

So the alum thing is promising, but the problem is I don't have a non-steel vessel to submerge the kickstand in.

Any thoughts on enamel camp-style cook pots?  I assume they're stainless steel, but wonder if the enamel finish would protect the pot's steel from the alum mixture.

[K Frame]

My first goto in situations like this is...

Dry ice.

Pack it in dry ice and let it soak for the better part of a day. Pull it out and hit the hell out of it with penetrating oil. The put it back in the dry ice to soak again.

I've freed up a lot of stuff over the years with dry ice, or least a trip to the deep freeze. Stuff that I never thought I'd be able to get free.

[tokugawa]

So the alum thing is promising, but the problem is I don't have a non-steel vessel to submerge the kickstand in.

Any thoughts on enamel camp-style cook pots?  I assume they're stainless steel, but wonder if the enamel finish would protect the pot's steel from the alum mixture.

I have not read up on it- can a dam be formed around the bolt to hold the alum solution? Or can plastic container be used?

If you know someone with a milling machine, a end cutting carbide end mill could take that out. Probably take longer to fixture the part securely than to make the cut.  Is it a blind hole, or threaded all the way through in the boss ?

[AZRedhawk44]

I have not read up on it- can a dam be formed around the bolt to hold the alum solution? Or can plastic container be used?

If you know someone with a milling machine, a end cutting carbide end mill could take that out. Probably take longer to fixture the part securely than to make the cut.  Is it a blind hole, or threaded all the way through in the boss ?

I've got an (aluminum? I think?) 9" paint roller tray, and plastic liners for it.

Gonna mix up some alum and water, put the part in the tray in the oven at 170* and let it soak overnight.  The spot on the kickstand with the stuck bolt can sit at the lowest point of the paint tray.  The water should protect the plastic from excess heat in the oven.

[Boomhauer]

Die grinder and a good burr bit is how I’d handle the situation.

My general advice is to throw out easy outs. As you discovered they are not easy nor do they get it out much of the time.

Best broken bolt extractor ever made is a welder.

[AZRedhawk44]

Best broken bolt extractor ever made is a welder.

Push comes to shove, I'll cut the boss off the kickstand with an angle grinder, get a piece of aluminum rod about the same diameter, and TIG it onto the kickstand arm.  Then tap it for M6.

Honestly, that's starting to seem like the right solution anyways.  I just don't know how deep the threads go into the kickstand arm so I don't know where to cut.

[Brad Johnson]

Push comes to shove, I'll cut the boss off the kickstand with an angle grinder, get a piece of aluminum rod about the same diameter, and TIG it onto the kickstand arm.  Then tap it for M6.

Honestly, that's starting to seem like the right solution anyways.  I just don't know how deep the threads go into the kickstand arm so I don't know where to cut.

How much is a replacement kickstand arm?

Brad

[K Frame]

Still think you'll be a lot more successful with a couple of pounds of dry ice.

[AZRedhawk44]

How much is a replacement kickstand arm?

Brad

$150+ shipping, but the problem is the delay.  It's a 6-8 week lead time.  This is Aprilia... not Honda.

[AZRedhawk44]

Still think you'll be a lot more successful with a couple of pounds of dry ice.

I've never used dry ice before, but it seems to me that freezing it would contract it, making the threaded hole smaller.

Are you suggesting that steel will contract more than aluminum will, and will loosen up?

I just Googled this concept and got this response from Quora:

Does steel shrink more than aluminum?
The coefficient of thermal expansion for steel is between 11 to 14, and for aluminium it is 23 i.e. approximately twice of steel. This means that an equal temperature change will produce twice as much change in the length of a bar of aluminum as for a bar of steel.

Seems to me that the aluminum would grip the steel more tightly and the steel would be relatively larger and more jammed in the hole based on that response.

Edit to add:  This does argue favorably for heating it though.

[K Frame]

Deep freezing does something else, and something FAR more important.

It helps break the corrosion adhesions that exist between the parts; the penetrating oil helps lubricate the pathways and helps prevent the corrosion from rebonding the pieces together.

I've used deep freezing to remove stuck steel screws and bolts from steel, aluminum, and brass fittings. I've also used deep freezing to remove stuck aluminum bolts from aluminum fittings.

Once those adhesions are broken and the pieces have lubrication, you can let them return to close to room temperature and still have success in removing the bolt.

I recommend it because it works.

[Brad Johnson]

$150+ shipping, but the problem is the delay.  It's a 6-8 week lead time.  This is Aprilia... not Honda.

Ick.

Brad

[AZRedhawk44]

Deep freezing does something else, and something FAR more important.

It helps break the corrosion adhesions that exist between the parts; the penetrating oil helps lubricate the pathways and helps prevent the corrosion from rebonding the pieces together.

I've used deep freezing to remove stuck steel screws and bolts from steel, aluminum, and brass fittings. I've also used deep freezing to remove stuck aluminum bolts from aluminum fittings.

Once those adhesions are broken and the pieces have lubrication, you can let them return to close to room temperature and still have success in removing the bolt.

I recommend it because it works.

What about if it's coated in blue locktite?

[K Frame]

It can help break Loctite, as well.

[Brad Johnson]

So does heat.

Can also dissolve it with acetone. A couple of drops in the recess, enough every minute or two to keep it wet for five or ten minutes, and then remove. If you let it dry it will re-set, though not quite as strong.

Brad

[Cliffh]

The last time this sort of thing happened, I gave up trying to remove the broken steel bolt from the aluminum case.  Took the part & $50 to a local machine shop where they removed the broken bolt & cleaned up the threads. 

I've got better things to do with my time than fight a stubborn bolt.