Just wondering if anyone else experience this. I recently purchased a new P3 Carbon, I love it. As an upgrade I purchased a new set of Zipp Vuka bars, they are sweet, a work of art, I’m not really worthy of having them. Anyway, tonight I installed them, set them up and in the process of dialing them in realized that I need to widen the pads, they came assembled with the pads mounted to the base bar in the middle holes, I needed to use the wider holes. As I started to remove the bolts I thought they felt a bit hard to turn, I thought maybe it was just the Loctite thread compound and turned a bit more… anyway, I heard a loud snap, my allen key broke off into the bolt head! Needless to say the bolts were in fact installed cross-threaded, now I have new bars that are messed up and a Half Ironman (my A race) this Sunday…what to do… what to do.
I know that there are ways to get bolts like this out, dremmel a slot into the head and use a screwdriver, file the edges and use a wrench etc… then retap the holes and use a larger bolt. Should I be doing this to a new set of $1000 bars? I know Zipp are pretty good with things but I highly doubt that I can get this resolved before my race this weekend.
I haven’t worked on the Vuka personally, but are you sure that they’re cross threaded and not reverse-thread, or something else out of the ordinary?
Did you purchase them from a local shop? If so, and they came screwed up from the factory, then have the shop call their Zipp rep. Zipp is always very receptive and would probably work with you to get everything set up for your race. Although, do you really want to change your aerobar setup a few days before the race?
If it wasn’t through a local shop, then I would try to call Zipp first thing tomorrow morning and see what they can do. Good luck.
Yeah I am waiting for the shop to open and will discuss with them. I purchased through the shop so I should be pretty well covered. I know it’s a bit close to race day to try something new but I can pretty much mimic my position I had with my Oval A900’s so I’m not too sowrried about that, the thing is that my old Ovals are sold so right now I am bar-less!
It’s a bit hard to believe they came from Zipp like that but the sales guy at the shop who is a real gear-nut like me assured me that they never did anything when the bars arrived. It all seems very odd though, hopefulyl something will work out.