Hey,

Just swapping out my disc rotors, which have been on the bike for years. All the bolts came out apart from one, which is now beyond using the tool as the head is worn away from trying to turn it.

Just wondering my next step to get the thing out? Is this something something I can do myself with normal tools or should I take it to a lbs or somewhere else?

Shame they didn’t grease it properly when they put the pit together 🙁

Cheers

Rob

Shame they didn’t grease it properly when they put the pit together

They normally loctight them on.
Normal rules (after the event apply) if your starting to trash the head stop.

Other methods include cut a slot in for a flat bladed screwdriver or drill out the head and then work on remove the bolt.

Couple of options;

Cut a slot in the head and use a big screwdriver

use a centre punch/small chisel and tap the bolts round anticlockwise

You could try tapping an allen head socket in torq bolt make sure you have a tight fit carefully use rachet wrench to remove offending torq bolt.

ez-out to remove the bolt.

Use a left hand drill bit that twists to the left to engage the bolt.

Slot in the head worked for me on an alu rotor bolt a couple of weeks ago, will take longer with steel, but the bolt head will be far more amenable to a bit of abuse!

If you have just one bolt left, try rocking the rotor back and forth. Some hubs let you have enough movement to easily free the last stuck bolt.

Yup, very first port of call (after a wee bit of penetrating oil) is to try and “unscrew” the rotor. That’ll either turn the bolt, or if it turns without the bolt, at least you know the bolt’s not seized onto the disc (and if it doesn’t turn at all you lose nowt)

It’s threadlocked in generally so a bit of heat is very helpful. Cutting a slot into the bolt with a dremel will add heat if you’re not happy about blowtorching it. But if you’re not comfortable with this sort of destructive stuff, it’s not a bad idea to give it to a (good) LBS as some of the tricks are one-shot and if you screw it up they can’t do it at all.

Oh and as a general rule, make sure there’s no dirt in the bottom of the bolt hole- not to say there was this time but it’s a big cause of rounded torqs.

I’ve had this before…thankfully I have an angle-grinder to hand. All you need to do is to grind down the bolts just enough for the remaining metal to “give” and you can pry off the rotors. Once off it’s a simple case of using pliers to remove the threads and away you go.

I have managed to do this by hammering a larger size torq bit into the hole. Guess it depends how worn away the head is. Frustrating when a simple job goes this way eh?!

PJM1974’s method but use a pair of mole grips for the win. 😉

i would
1. slot and screwdriver
2. grind bolt off and pliers
3. if they both fail and it is still in I would accept 5 bolts is enough to secure my rotor

PJM’s method can be effective but it’s further down the list of options imo… Just because you can still do it after some of the others, but you can’t do them after you cut the top off. The risk is that if it’s properly seized in, it can be very hard to get out with just the stub of the bolt.

Though JY is right too.

I snapped a head off one of my disc bolts a while ago (yay for bolts made of cheese).

I eventually got it out by building a little blu-tack wall around the bolt head then filling that with WD-40 and letting it soak in for a hour or two (topping up every now and then). Then I very carefully drilled a small pilot hole in the center of the bolt head and screwed in an small reverse-thread EZ-out.

…and if you can’t get the threads out then I’m sure 5 bolts is plenty. At least I hope that’s the case as I’ve at least one rear brake running like that!

Cheers for all the posts. Still not sure weather to let the lbs have a go if they’re willing as I will probably mess it up 😉

my current favorite method for removing rounded bolts is using an impact driver. Has got me out of a hole a few times recently.

I ended up having to drill one out once, just look up the internal diameter of the relevant female thread and go for a drill bit 1mm smaller.

I just let mine undo themselves…. 😳

Whatever method, it’s IMMENSELY satisfying when it does work.

I removed a bolt with the “hammer in a torx” method this morning. Am HUGELY pleased.

ah yes I do remember that incident bigyinn, good job you happened to check them..

Had to do this twice in the last year. Tried the Torx and slot methods to no avail.
In the end I drilled the head off the bolts using a drill bit with the same diameter as the rotor holes. When the head came off I was able to lift off the rotor and then easily unscrew the remains of the bolt with pliers.
Neither of the bolts seemed to be seized in place in the hub, they’d just been over-tightened – I hasten to add that this was on a pair of wheels that I bought on eBay and the rotor bolts were Allen headed ones, which is always a bad idea on such small sizes.

Small headed vice/mole grips works a treat. Also if you can heat up the bolt it makes it easier for the locktite to let go when its nice and toasty.

As above, a decent set of moles, you only really have one or possibly two chances with this method.