Bolt Sleeve Removal Problem

The upper end of my rear shock is joined to the frame by a male/female bolt
system instead of the more convential bolt & nut.

The hollow/tubular female bolt passes all the way through - carrying 100% of the
load - and the male threads into it from the other side serving to keep
everything in place and maybe to add some strength by filling up the tube
completely.

Male comes out easily enough, but the female is *really* in there. It can be
rotated, but won't back out. Tried putting the male back in with about 1/8"
protruding and giving it a few taps with a hammer as I rotated the female, but
no progress and I got a little scared about breaking something if I went at it
any harder.

It's currently soaking in penetrating oil.

Any suggestions?
--
PeteCresswell

On Tue, 07 Jun 2005 19:27:05 -0700, "(PeteCresswell)" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

The upper end of my rear shock is joined to the frame by a male/female bolt
system instead of the more convential bolt & nut.

The hollow/tubular female bolt passes all the way through - carrying 100% of the
load - and the male threads into it from the other side serving to keep
everything in place and maybe to add some strength by filling up the tube
completely.

Male comes out easily enough, but the female is *really* in there. It can be
rotated, but won't back out. Tried putting the male back in with about 1/8"
protruding and giving it a few taps with a hammer as I rotated the female, but
no progress and I got a little scared about breaking something if I went at it
any harder.

It's currently soaking in penetrating oil.

Any suggestions?

Adding to Leo Lichtman's observations, there's a possibility that the
end of the hollow sleeve is slightly flared where the inner bolt's
shoulder bottomed against the end of the hollow bolt's tube. (I've
seen this syndrome in a couple of other applications.) If that's the
case. taking a long bolt that's just barely smaller than the inner
threads, putting it into the tube so that it bottoms out on the
underside of the head of the tube at the other end, and giving that
bolt a few taps with a hammer, may help; this transforms the push of
the whack on the bolt into a pull on the tube as a whole, which I have
found often helps when extracting lightly press-fit sleeves from
assemblies.
--
Typoes are a feature, not a bug.
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(PeteCresswell) said:

The upper end of my rear shock is joined to the frame by a male/female bolt
system instead of the more convential bolt & nut.

The hollow/tubular female bolt passes all the way through - carrying 100% of the
load - and the male threads into it from the other side serving to keep
everything in place and maybe to add some strength by filling up the tube
completely.

Male comes out easily enough, but the female is *really* in there. It can be
rotated, but won't back out. Tried putting the male back in with about 1/8"
protruding and giving it a few taps with a hammer as I rotated the female, but
no progress and I got a little scared about breaking something if I went at it
any harder.

It's currently soaking in penetrating oil.

Any suggestions?

Drill it out. If you can keep it from spinning.

So, is the other end of the shock stiff fixed to the frame? If so,
disconnect it - the side load on the bolt provided by the shock may be
enough to prevent the female bolt from backing out. Being attached to
the frame would mean that the side load on the bolt would be
substantial.

BTW - what frame are we talking about here?

Per Leo Lichtman:

Quoted message said:

Everything you are doing is so logical, that it seems that it ought to work.
The fact that the stubborn, hollow bolt will rotate easily makes me think
that penetrating oil ain't gone help.

Rotated, but not easily.

I got it out.

Thanks for the responses.

Took a deep breath and and tapped harder. Looking at the whole system now that
it's apart, I see that I probably would have tapped quite a bit harder without
hurting anything.

The removed bolt looks to me like it was assembled without any lube and appears
lightly corroded or electrolyzed in places. It is also covered in some places
by a thin film of something-or-other that had to be scraped off - so maybe it
*was* lubed at assembly but I'd let it go so long that the lube turned to gunk.

Anyhow, seems pretty clear than one or more of the above are why it didn't want
to come out.

Scraped off the crud, wiped it down a few times, ran a shop rag through the
bushing it goes into, schmeered a little grease on it and it now goes in and out
like magic.

The "corrosion" plus the cheesey feel of the material made me think of the
MonoLink bolt that I sheared last fall - seven mile hike. In that case,
SevenCycles said "bad bolt". I say "inherantly-cheesey bolt plus a few tail
whip attempts".

Anyhow, I called SevenCycles to order a replacement for the bolt currently under
discussion and the cost is....are you ready for this?..... *SEVEN* freaking
dollars. Geeze, good thing I didn't need the male bolt too....-)

I ought to post a photo of this thing and ask some of the engineers here just
exactly what it does that a $1.00 shoulder bolt won't do......besides weigh .5
grams less.

I have the same reaction to the MonoLink bolts. Inherantly cheesey and, to the
eyes of this non-engineer, over-engineered.
--
PeteCresswell

Per Anthony A.:

Quoted message said:

BTW - what frame are we talking about here?

SevenCycles "Duo" - their implementation of the Maverick suspension system.
--
PeteCresswell