So i was tightening down the headset, spacers and stem on my Cannondale and have snapped the aluminium bolt that goes into the fork expander thing about 70mm from the top of the fork. As a result there is still a section of the bolt that is stuck in the expander and im wondering what the best way is to get it out and how the expander is best removed?
Sorry if this isn’t making much sense, modern bikes aren’t my thing just yet.
Not my forte either, but my guess would be to remove the stem, pull out the fork, then with a long screwdriver (or maybe there is a more appropriate tool) slowly tap out the expander from the top, then get new expander and bolt…
If your fork is butted at the bottom of the headtube then it may not be all that easy to just push out (depends on your fork). You can get a drill and just drill holes in the thing in a bunch of places until it is satisfactorily broken up and then fashion a coat-hanger into a hook to pull it out.
The easiest (laziest?) option is just to push it down so it is out of the way and then put a new one in on top. They don’t weigh much, so having an extra busted starnut in your fork shouldn’t be a problem.
Carbon steerer?
Whatevs, just fill that shit up with wd40 and get yo drill out.
by expander you mean star nut? that shouldnt even be 70mm into the steerer…
If it is the star nut you could just get a screw driver the length longer than your steerer tube and smack it out from beneath the fork crown.
more information is a good idea. pushing it into the fork and fitting a new one is the easy option if it’s a carbon fork and expander bolt it could be quite tricky to get it out as the broken bolt will make it hard to collapse the expander mechanism
also if your dealing with carbon and using alloy bolts for any thing other than bottle cage mounts you really need to get a good torque wrench!!
Yeh, the fact that it snapped means it was WAY too tight already…
My vote is just push it down.
Cool, thanks guys. Its a carbon streerer so i might just push down the fork and go from there.
I’m a bit scared you can snap the bolt. JKLP, those bolts are only to sufficiently preload the bearings and should never be tightened past that. The bolts on the side of the stem are the critical ones for keeping the fork, bearings and stem tightened up.
cheers
yes wtf were you doing to snap that bolt, its not meant to be done up tight at all! anyway whats done is done.
carbon steerer… i would be hesitant to tap that down the steerer and use another one on top. you will scar the shit out of the inside of the steerer unless it has an alloy sleeve glued in. im not sure you really want to do that.
heres what i would do.
remove fork, drill small guide hole in the broken off bolt. use small easy-out to remove broken bolt, re-use existing star nut plug thing with new bolt.
if that doesnt work, which is unlikely but possible, drill the thing a bunch of times until you can take it out in pieces, then use one of the expanding top caps so you dont have to rape your fork with a new star nut.
if he used an alloy bolt it would be very easy to snap the bolt… the max torque setting for alloy bolts is only 3Nm which is fuck all
torque wrench is a must!
Sugarkane - what torque wrench would you recommend / where from? Price point?
Yeah trust me it took next to nothing to snap it.
I think i’ll take your advice Alex and drill it out replacing it with an expanding top cap.
if you can get the bolt out you could use a steel or ti bolt, you wont snap either of those in a hurry…
i got mine from wiggle for $120
