Hi guys
My beautiful fixture is ruined if I can't dig these f'n helicoils out and replace them with the free-running kind.
I bought "locking" helicoil inserts because I need them to stay put and didn't want to put a ton of torque on the bolts. Helicoil advertises these as retaining locking torque over many assembly cycles. Well, my experience has been quite a bit different. The inserts shredded my stainless steel bolts and on the third assembly cycle they locked the bolt right up, regardless of gobs of anti-seize grease. I drilled the head off two bolts and the first one came out and pulled the helicoil insert halfway out so I could unwind it. The second one seized so hard that when I put vice grips on the threads, I twisted the bolt right off.
What's the best way to extract helicoils? I'm hoping I won't destroy the STI threads in the fixture.
Why in the hell did these locking helicoils fail so miserably do to what they were advertised to do? Was it the stainless bolt on stainless thread insert that caused galling or something? Has anyone else used these successfully?
My beautiful fixture is ruined if I can't dig these f'n helicoils out and replace them with the free-running kind.
I bought "locking" helicoil inserts because I need them to stay put and didn't want to put a ton of torque on the bolts. Helicoil advertises these as retaining locking torque over many assembly cycles. Well, my experience has been quite a bit different. The inserts shredded my stainless steel bolts and on the third assembly cycle they locked the bolt right up, regardless of gobs of anti-seize grease. I drilled the head off two bolts and the first one came out and pulled the helicoil insert halfway out so I could unwind it. The second one seized so hard that when I put vice grips on the threads, I twisted the bolt right off.
What's the best way to extract helicoils? I'm hoping I won't destroy the STI threads in the fixture.
Why in the hell did these locking helicoils fail so miserably do to what they were advertised to do? Was it the stainless bolt on stainless thread insert that caused galling or something? Has anyone else used these successfully?