Ski

A friend of mine just called me and it seems one of the bolts on the passenger side castor block has stripped. Is this a nut that was tacked in place to secure the bolt or is drilled and tapped - anyone else had this happen and what's the best solution? TIA.

jerome951

Yep, there's a nut tacked inside the frame rail that likely came loose. My wrench fixed by cutting the frame rail where it curves up just in front of the caster block, peeling the lower side of the rail downward, tacking the nut back on, then welding back together. That was years ago and it's been fine since.

However, one of the nuts on my other side just broke loose while re-torquing the caster block. I'm thinking of some options that may be less invasive.

KuHL 951

The best repair I've seen is a complete plate w/ new nuts welded to the back and then to the frame. You'll notice that the caster block bolts are the self tapping type screw which tells me they are good only for about one removal cycle before they tear up the receiving threads in the frame. There was a thread like this just a week ago with some good links to repair methods.

Jeremy Himsel

Bret, I've had the welds snap off the nut, and I've also had the nut threads strip. On the one that broke the welds we cut the frame just enough to get a nut and wrench on the end of it. For the one that stripped I was able to use a time sert (because they're shouldered).

Ski

Thanks gents! I would guess he'll take it to the shop he frequents and get them to cut into the frame.

sayporsha

I wouldn't go cutting & welding just yet. I stripped mine out & fixed it with a Helicoil thread repair insert. If the blind nut is still secured to the chassis you can go this route. I will say it was tough to tap the larger threads for the Helicoil. Just get into your Zen place, take your time, use lots of WD-40 & back it out every quarter turn to break the chips. Wash it out with brake cleaner & install the Helicoil with Loctite.
http://www.helicoil.in/

daigo

I just bought a tap and cleaned them out.

jerome951

I've had the idea of fabbing a block of steel large enough to span both caster holes, tapping it, then tacking to the frame rail, in the future making sure to start both bolts before torquing the first one down. This way less torque on the tack welds.