Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: AZRedhawk44 on May 01, 2023, 02:26:12 PM
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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?
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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?
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Can u get a left hand drill bit and run the drill in reverse? And soak it good with pb blaster.
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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.
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Alum is (or was) also used to stop bleeding from shaving nicks in the form of a "styptic pencil."
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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.
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Have photos of the offending part? That might help with strateegery formulation.
Brad
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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 ?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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Still think you'll be a lot more successful with a couple of pounds of dry ice.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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$150+ shipping, but the problem is the delay. It's a 6-8 week lead time. This is Aprilia... not Honda.
Ick.
Brad
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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?
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It can help break Loctite, as well.
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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
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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.
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The problem is two fold- one, the bolt is broken, and two, there is no stub to grab to turn it.
Cliff has a good suggestion, if the alum does not work.
Everyone has probably heard this already, but here is a standard caution- do not use heat after using certain penetrating oils- just as with heating brake cleaner, they will form a very toxic gas.
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You have a welder right?
Lay a 8 or 10mm bolt over the hole. Crank up the heat on a the welder and start laying wire/filler (steel) into the hole on the easy out and bolt until you fill up the nut with a solid good bead. The steel won't really stick to the aluminum. Don't get it hot enough to melt the Al, keep the arc pointed at the steel and let the puddle build into the nut.
Let the whole thing cool completely. (repeated heating cooling will loosen the bolt)
Use a torch to get the aluminum reasonably hot but not cherry red. Couple hundred degrees to get some expansion.
Hit nut with an impact to pull the whole shebang out.
Pray to deity of your choice that the easy out stays stuck in what's left of the bolt.
You will almost certainly have to run a tap down the threads in the aluminum.
Next time (as Boomhauer said) skip the easy out and weld a nut on first.
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Jesus, would you just throw the damned thing into the fires of Mount Doom and be done with it, Frodo?
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Used a 1/4" flat milling bit in the drill press to level off the easy-out stub, drilled the old bolt out with a 1/4" masonry carbide bit, using a 2-axis vise on the drill press. Most of the threading was still intact in the bottom of the hole. Ran an M6 die through it to clean it up, holds the bolt just fine.
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Holy cow, this is quite the production it seems.
Short the switch so it thinks the kickstand is up and carry a length of 2x4 to prop the bike with. ;)
Follow me for more tips. :)
bob
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Used a 1/4" flat milling bit in the drill press to level off the easy-out stub, drilled the old bolt out with a 1/4" masonry carbide bit, using a 2-axis vise on the drill press. Most of the threading was still intact in the bottom of the hole. Ran an M6 die through it to clean it up, holds the bolt just fine.
No detcord? :'(
Brad
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...and the ad-hoc replacement springs I got at Ace are too weak to reliably keep the kickstand up. Ugh. Even with trimming them and forming new loops at the ends. Two springs, one inside the other, both at tension at the mount points.
Looks like it's going to be several weeks until I ride this bike as I wait for new springs to come.
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Looks like it's going to be several weeks until I ride this bike as I wait for new springs to come.
It doesn't have a center stand? If it does, zip-tie the side-stand up and RIDE!
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Try an industrial supply house- either local or online. McMaster Carr or MSC.
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Try an industrial supply house- either local or online. McMaster Carr or MSC.
AF1 Racing is probably the largest western US distributor for Aprilia parts, and who I ordered the variety of replacement parts needed to bring my bike back to repaired status. Some of the parts in my order had a 6-8 week lead time, and some were in stock. Originally I had them hold everything until all of it was available and ship it in a single shipment, but I contacted them yesterday and had them send the only 2 parts they actually had in stock... which were the two compound springs where one fits within the other.
The remaining pieces can wait, and the bike is at least usable without them.
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AF1 Racing is probably the largest western US distributor for Aprilia parts, and who I ordered the variety of replacement parts needed to bring my bike back to repaired status. Some of the parts in my order had a 6-8 week lead time, and some were in stock. Originally I had them hold everything until all of it was available and ship it in a single shipment, but I contacted them yesterday and had them send the only 2 parts they actually had in stock... which were the two compound springs where one fits within the other.
The remaining pieces can wait, and the bike is at least usable without them.
Anyone on the Aprilia forums have a wrecked bike they'd be willing to cannibalize for parts?
Brad
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What else broke?
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What else broke?
All told:
1. The rock broke off the pin that the bottom of the springs anchor to on the kickstand arm. 1 part.
2. The springs themselves vanished off the bike, being freed from the lower anchor. 2 parts.
3. The springs have a "protective sleeve" they are encircled by. Pssh. Whatever. But it's a missing part. 1 part.
4. The kickstand pivot bolt has two nuts. One nut secures the kickstand arm, the second nut secures the kickstand sensor switch. The second nut broke when disassembling everything, the bolt section was too small and the loctite too strong, or it was bent by the rock strike, or something. So I now need a new kickstand pivot bolt, and the little secondary M6 nut. 2 parts.
All told, that's 6 parts.
Bike will work if I just get the two springs, but to return it to undamaged status it takes all 6.
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Most likely, the only thing that is proprietary is the kickstand itself. Everything else is going to be off an industrial supply shelf.
Here is MSC's extension spring list- 5,000 of them, by length, extended length, diameter, rate, wire size and all searchable in the side bar. https://www.mscdirect.com/browse/tn?navid=2104477&searchterm=Extension+Springs
It is a good resource to have in the back of your mind when the factory parts are hard to find.
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In a bout of karmic fu from talking about busted bolts, I managed to break off a 10-24 tap in a blind hole today.
Fortunately the part was still on the mill and a couple of 1/8" carbide end mills were enough to cut out the tap.