Rounded allen bolt - tips needed!

Gah! In a fit of overzealous bike-maintainence I've gone and rounded the allen bolt on my brake lever! Does anyone have any tips to get it out?

Use a hacksaw blade to make a groove, then stick a screwdriver in it. If you make 2 grooves you could use a Phillips for better torque.

if that fails drill the head off the bolt, then use mole grips or pliers to extract the rest of it.

hopefully it's a hinged clamp lever?

mole grips if you can get them onto the sides of the allen head.

Try this first:
Take your allen key or even the same size torque key, slot it in the hole, bang it down with hammer.
That might give you the additional purchase you need before you have to crack out the hacksaw/drill.

try using a different allen key, too - it may be that your one is slightly worn especially at the tips, so a new, "square" one (i.e. the corners) may get better purchase when you bang it in with the hammer

Go to your local Maplins, Car shop, Halfords, hardware shop etc.

Buy a small tube of any two part steel epoxy - I recommend BONDLOC™ Steel Epoxy B2013 which sets like steel - I get mine from Maplins.

Mix up a small blob and fill the rounded out head, push in an alan key and let the whole thing cure (an hour or two usually)

When set/cured, unscrew.

. . . or if the bolt sat proud (rasied and not flush) I would use a hack saw or dremel and cut a groove across the bolt and unscrew with a flathead screwdriver.

[EDIT] sam beat me to that one.

Thanks for all the hints peeps, I really appreciate it!

All good advice, specially the epoxy, that was a new one on me.

Heres one other for more extreme circumstances, like if a steel fixing (with an OK head) is corroded into an alluminium casing or whatever, use a plumbers gas torch to heat up the bolt and surrounding area, then try to unscrew. This can shock free the thread through the expansion, you do of course loose any paint or finish on the parts.

Tynan is like the most useful geezer on the internet - my shiny de-anodized e-lever is testament to this fact

the-smiling-buddha [img]Tynan is like the most useful geezer on the internet - my shiny de-anodized e-lever is testament to this fact

Where did you get that photograph of me from, it's not what it seems, I was going through a difficult time ?

Are you going to show us a picture of your lever then ?

He forgot to remove it from the bucket and now it's a fine metallic silt.. ;)

don't try and adjust seat post while slightly pissed.
rounded allen bolt. waiting for epoxy to set key in.

how close does one have to be before running out and buying a new bike?

This is very off topic but i am still in the nursery so need to do a bit of thread hijacking.

My forks seem to be too narrow for my wheel and i'm not sure why.

I have a raleigh record spring (around 1984 i think because it has older graphics) which not so long ago had a bit of an incident with a car, unfortunately the car won and my front wheel was beant in half. I got a cheap new wheel with the intention of building up the original hub again (mainly because it was gold and shiney), when i fitted the new wheel it was a bit of a wrestle to get on but went on in the end and i was just happy to be riding again.

I have been doing some work on my bike today and decided to have a look at the front wheel. It was VERY hard to get off, Once off i looked at the fork and its a good 8/10mm narrower than the wheel fittings. On closer inspection the new wheel does look wider than the original by about 5 mm (are older hubs different sizes?) but the original hub is still hard to get into the forks.

Is this at all normal? Or have i bent my forks in the crash? they don't look lopsided. the forks look ok but i am wondering whether they are that safe to ride on, reynolds 501 tubing so fairly chunky stuff.

i've taken some pictures but not sure how to upload them to the forum at the moment. will work it out and post them.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Sorry again for hijacking the post.

pics of narrow forks

thanks again

not having much luck with the picture posting, they're at this URL on flikr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/38756139@N02/3890595260/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/38756139@N02/3889808089/

"This photo is private.

                                        Oops! You don't have permission to view this photo.

oops....

now public

Tried to take my front brake off and managed to round the bolt out :(
Am I fucked?

Any ideas/ tips to get it out?
Bowery forks, tektro OEM brake, if that helps.

Peace xx

molegrips

stick an elastic band over the bolt hole and try a slightly larger spanner

Tried to take my front brake off

Why?

sometimes you can whack a slightly larger allen key into the bolt but if it's bad you'll have to drill it out, carefully.
(assuming this is a modern type of brake mount)

If the bolt is proud (happy to be a bolt) of the brake, then get a little hacksaw and cut a slot into it - you can then use a screwdriver.

If it's recessed you can drill through the bolt using a drill bit about the same diameter of the bolt (not the head) once you get through the head te is should pop off and you should be able to pull the rest through the front of the forks.