Broken bolt on my roof bars and I can’t for the life of me find one anywhere, and ideas where to look?

It’s an M5 Socket cap screw and 100m in length.
not to difficult in itself but!
The thread needs to run pretty much the full length, the only ones I can find the thread stops after about 20-30mm like the image below.

I’ve tried all the internet and a local faster firm, they must and do exist. I even got a couple and of the short threaded ones and though I’d dig out the tap and die set from the depths of the garage and try cutting it, no chance, to hard\too much material on the shaft to get anywhere.

oh great STW don’t fail me now, just seems a waste to bin the roof bars and buy new for 1 bolt.

http://www.workshopping.co.uk/product/m5-x-100mm-metric-socket-cap-screws-self-colour–pack-100/BC-MSCS05-100/

Fully threaded socket cap screws can be ordered

cheers, might give them a ring to see if they’ll do any quantity less the 100 though.

You can get full thread cap head screws, so finding a replacement shouldn’t be too hard.
Do you have any hardware places local to you? At my last job, there was a shop down the road called Norton Fasteners that had pretty much every type of fastener you could ever need in stock. And you could buy 1 or 1000. (This place was in Letchworth if you are by chance that way).

Probably a place similar to that on a local industrial estate.

A2A4.com will probably have them or else reckons he can obtain pretty much anything

Are you the Keith from Totton? – he’s in Shirley so I guess you might have tried him already

scaredypants, yep that’ll be me, not Totton now but not far away. You one of the Newforce guys? I’d tried their website but not in store so might try them first thanks

A2A4 not answering the phone at the moment
So I tried http://www.workshopping.co.uk but no joy there, he said he’s got a supplier which might be able to get some but minimum order would be 200 and they won’t be cheap 🙁

I’ll try A2A4 again later

It’s only a set of Lidl £30 roof bars, Go outdoors stocks exactly the same ones for £70! But still seems crazy to bin them for the sake of one bolt. I might see if I can dremmel a bit out of the casing and use a standard machine screw and then I can use a screw driver to tighten and loosen that one instead of a Allen key like the others. I’m sure I’ll get one of those in B&Q or the likes.

Why do you need it fully threaded?

can you just use threaded rod and a couple of nuts? That’s what I did on mine but it does depend a bit on where it’s going to fit

If you are searching on the interwebz for this, try calling it a Set Screw as that’s the proper term for what you are after. A bolt has that plain shank.

It needs to be fully threaded or close! 80-90mm because of the length of travel on the clamp, tried the 20-30mm threaded screw that I bought and the camp didn’t come close to closing on the roof rail. I might be able to get away with a 60-70 long screw but it’ll be really tight with the 20-30mm of thread to open enough and clamp properly on the rail.

locking a couple of nuts would work but I’d need to make an even bigger hole in the housing to get a socket in and the head’s pretty well recessed in the clamp so not sure there’s room around it either. if I can’t get the right one a machine screw is a better compromise as can sit in the recess and a can be tightened from the top with a screwdriver and it’d need a much smaller hole bodging in the case

no, not newforce but I used to come to the marchwood thursday rides afew years ago when I could get there in time (I’d be the daft bastard on a bullitt, as it was my only bike at the time 😳 )

I reckon he’ll have them at a2a4 – it’s quite a “shop”

tthew yeah tried that cheers, I just get more of the same plus machine screws and coach bolts

Wow Marchwoord thursday rides, that’s a while ago now 8)

Nm