Not a mechanic by any means but I am attempting to do this myself.
I’ve got to remove the brake faring on my Felt IA to charge my Di2 system. In doing so I noticed my last service job had a fault. The mechanic stripped the 2mm screw and no I can’t get them out.
Does anybody have any pointers or experience with this kind of situation? I’d love to not pay $75 to have 4 bolts removed.
Also since it happening to me I’m curious if there’s a way to replace these 2mm screws with something else? Anybody out there hacked anything on their IA??
I feel your pain - I did this to my Zipp 404 preload bolt. It’s a 2mm allen bolt. I ended up with a small circular dremmel drill cutting the thing out along with the surrounding barrel. Options that were suggested to me but that didn’t work.
Drill a slice into it and use a flat blade screwdriver to then remove.
Find an old 2mm allen key that you don’t need or can afford to lose, put superglue on the end of it and then push it into the threaded bolt. Let the glue set and then you may be able to extract it depending on how wedged in there it is. Obviously be careful with where any excess glue goes otherwise you may end up properly stuck - no pun intended!
I tried numbers 1 and 2 and by the time number 3 was suggested I had made enough of a mess of the bolt I just got angry and cut the thing out along with the surrounds. £40 to replace the parts. May add up to a lot more on an expensive carbon bike!
The head is stripped (Allen wrench turns, bolt doesn’t) or the bolt is stripped (everything turns but doesn’t back out)?
Either way get some gorilla glue and glue an allen wrench into the head. Let it set and then gently back the bolt out. A little fingernail polish remover takes it apart and start on the next bolt.
Not a mechanic by any means but I am attempting to do this myself.
I’ve got to remove the brake faring on my Felt IA to charge my Di2 system. In doing so I noticed my last service job had a fault. The mechanic stripped the 2mm screw and no I can’t get them out.
Does anybody have any pointers or experience with this kind of situation? I’d love to not pay $75 to have 4 bolts removed.
Also since it happening to me I’m curious if there’s a way to replace these 2mm screws with something else? Anybody out there hacked anything on their IA??
Ha, before even opening the thread I was thinking “I bet that’s on a Felt IA.” SuperDave of course has removed thousands of these without stripping, which he likes to use as an example of how great these screws are for the purpose they serve (why then does Felt include an entire extra bag of them?).
The suggestions above are quite good and one of them should work.
Good advice here, the only thing I’d add is if you try glueing a 2mm key onto the bolt, soak the threads in penetrating oil before you attempt the extraction
I feel your pain - I did this to my Zipp 404 preload bolt. It’s a 2mm allen bolt. I ended up with a small circular dremmel drill cutting the thing out along with the surrounding barrel. Options that were suggested to me but that didn’t work.
Drill a slice into it and use a flat blade screwdriver to then remove.
Find an old 2mm allen key that you don’t need or can afford to lose, put superglue on the end of it and then push it into the threaded bolt. Let the glue set and then you may be able to extract it depending on how wedged in there it is. Obviously be careful with where any excess glue goes otherwise you may end up properly stuck - no pun intended!
I tried numbers 1 and 2 and by the time number 3 was suggested I had made enough of a mess of the bolt I just got angry and cut the thing out along with the surrounds. £40 to replace the parts. May add up to a lot more on an expensive carbon bike!
try using a NEW 2mm allen wrench and make sure you are using one that does not have a little ball end to make it able to go in at an angle. You might also want to make sure it is a 2mm and not a T8 torx because many have the torx and you might want to try the T8 torx wrench as will fit a little tighter and possibly hold.
Awesome guys/girls thanks for all the tips. I’ve been using a good quality 2mm wrench with a flat top that I bought as part of a set at Sears (Craftsman Brand). I think the thing is just stripped to hell as it looks like it wasn’t all the way seated by the last mechanics wrench. Now in his defense I was doing a quick charge during the early morning of a 70.3 race so getting life into the shifting system was the higher priority on the day vs finessing the 2mm blots.
I’m going to give these options a go but if there are any other suggestions I’m all ears. First up I am going to try the T8 unless somebody can foresee that going VERY wrong.
The screw extractor is a good last resort. I would get a quality extraction kit if you go that route. This one includes reverse-threaded drill bits, so that you don’t tighten the bolt further when you drill the pilot: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002NYBH8/
I had the same issue with the pinch bolt on a ZIPP 404, and last week with the wheel alignment grub screw, in the rear drop out of my new Felt IA.
I managed to recover both, by using a drill bit, but the drill in reverse…
Push the drill bit hard into the screw and then ease on the trigger, so the drill starts slowly…
As there is no real tension in the bolt (it isn’t holding stuff together), it should back out quit easily…
Not a mechanic by any means but I am attempting to do this myself.
I’ve got to remove the brake faring on my Felt IA to charge my Di2 system. In doing so I noticed my last service job had a fault. The mechanic stripped the 2mm screw and no I can’t get them out.
Does anybody have any pointers or experience with this kind of situation? I’d love to not pay $75 to have 4 bolts removed.
Also since it happening to me I’m curious if there’s a way to replace these 2mm screws with something else? Anybody out there hacked anything on their IA??
Ha, before even opening the thread I was thinking “I bet that’s on a Felt IA.” SuperDave of course has removed thousands of these without stripping, which he likes to use as an example of how great these screws are for the purpose they serve (why then does Felt include an entire extra bag of them?).
The suggestions above are quite good and one of them should work.
While it is true that I’ve removed 1000s of them, I also have a very nice hardened screwdriver-handled 2mm hex tool and unlike the O.P. I am a bicycle mechanic. I included extra screws because we knew they’d be lost, damaged and more difficult to source than a typical M5 x 0.8mm bolt commonplace in the bicycle industry. It’s the same reason I’d include touch up paint, an owner’s manual, and why Felt has a crew of customer service folk eager to assist.
I’ll continue to encourage people with the IA to ride the bike on a day-to-day basis without the covers as they serve no purpose other than to aid the aerodynamic performance and make servicing the bike far more difficult. When the race wheels go on, the covers can go on.
I’ve been patiently awaiting a response haha. All of your points are good ones. I rode without covers on my P5 generally and encouraged some IA owners to do the same.
They actually make left hand or reverse drill bits for this purpose.
Left twist bits were not originally created for removing screws, but you would have either be a very old machinist or someone that has worked in the industry for a long time to know the real reason
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They actually make left hand or reverse drill bits for this purpose.
Left twist bits were not originally created for removing screws, but you would have either be a very old machinist or someone that has worked in the industry for a long time to know the real reason
I don’t know why this is, but, in the oil industry, we have ‘special’ left hand thread drill strings… These are basically for those that can’t work out how to apply left hand torque, down a right hand thread string, without backing something off where they hadn’t planned
This isn’t an option for me as I’ve created a custom insert for my IA so that I make use of the full space in the frame nearly doubling the size of the storage box. I’ve gone ahead and purchased an extra junction box and I’ll plug it into the RD wire in order to charge the battery. This seems like the easiest and quickest solution.
Appreciate the feedback however so thank you very much!!
Although true, but you don’t buy a superbike to ride it without the covers. That said, as a shop that sell/sold a shitload of IA’s i just don’t get it that people strip these bolts all the time. Get some good quality allen and torque wrenches. You also don’t fiddle around with cheap tools on a Ducati. And those tiny screws just need to be hand tight. They don’t structural need to support anything.
In my case it looks like the screw didn’t go in aligned so it was slightly off centered and muscled in anyway. I’m assuming inside the threads have been destroyed. I’ve gotten off enough to get the charging done but there are still two trouble screws I’ll deal with when the time is right (closer to race season) for now I’m able to get back aboard my mistress and ride indoors.
