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Hi Chaps,
I rounded a soft alu cleat bolt in my shoe, drilled the head off - but the bolt was seized and couldn't be removed with molgrips, no space to get a hacksaw in, and can't be accessed from the rear.
The bolt is pretty much flush with the shoe.... any ideas on how to remove it?
Cheers
Ricks
get a reverse tap set.
drill a 2-3mm hole into it, give it a good soak with pentrant oil, wind the tap in and hopefully it'll bring the bolt out.
You can normally get the plat out from within the shoe after you have lifted out the insole. PITA if you can't do that. The only thing that comes to mind is to drill it and the see if you can get a screwout into it.
I'm assuming they're not MTB shoes? As I've never comes across an MTB pair that you can't take the cleat plate out from the inside
I leanrt this the hard way with my MT91 boots - gore-tex liner so you can't get to the plate. 🙁
But the reverse tap method works.
I had a similar problem with a Northwave goretex lined winter boot. I didn't want to cut the liner to remove the plate.
In the end I managed to turn the plate round 180 degrees so that I could get the cleats in the correct position using the other pair of holes in the plate. If it happens again I'll be screwed (excuse the pun).
Tried the reverse tap method.... got a 2mm drill bit in, and it bloody snapped in the bolt. And as it's Ti tipped, I can't drill that out....
The cleat plate isn't removable either - looks like I'm going to have to use the upper cleat threads then.
I hate Crank Brothers' cleat bolts. Why make them of the softest alu known to man?
oops...
new shoes?
use steel bolts and coppaslip them
TJ to the rescue! 😉
I'm definitely doing that from now on, I had the brilliant idea of using the new cleat bolts that came with my CB cleats... they're made of cheese, soft cheese.
Not much use to you now but if you'd have cut the cleat off and left the bolt whole, then leave it to soak over night with a little penetration oil, the cleat bolt then offers much more to grab with the molegrips.
Had to do the above more than once and never failed
+1 on the copper ease for next time.
Annoyingly, I use copper slip on pretty much everything.
Obviously a face palm moment.