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Echo Booster Nearly Cost Me A New Frame!


AlexC

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>_<

Ok, so I brought the Echo 4 bolt booster for my Onza T-Pro a week ago, we fitted it with no problems at all - the screws went in fine and got it all setup. A few days ago I was riding to the place I was going to do Trials and my freewheel decided to eat my jeans, in the process it also pulled my wheel out of line and slightly bent the Drive Side Tug, no problem we got it fixed apart from the brakes were slightly out of line, so tonight before we were gonna go riding I was going to re-align my pads...... that's where the fun began (N)

Round 1

So we began undoing the bolts so we could align them, got to this one bolt and it would not move at all. After about 10 mins of trying to get it undone the bolt was rounded.

Round 2

Lets get a hacksaw and cut a groove in it so we can use it like a normal screw..... it didn't like that either, wouldn't even move a MM...

Round 3

Up to my Grandads I go, he can make or fix anything so we thought if he can't get it out, no one can. Out come this massive lock grip plyer's and we attempt to get it out, with again .... no luck.

Round 4

Ok, lock grips wont do it - let's get a Heat Rod and heat the bolt up a bit ( Not entirly sure why, but he knew what he was doing! ) After we heated it up a bit, we got the lock grips and try to unscrew it again, you guessed it - with no luck!

Round 5

At this stage, I was thinking if I should buy a new T-Pro Frame or get a different Frame. Out comes the blow-torch :blink: - We heated the bolt up untill it was glowing red hot, then instantly put cold water on it hoping that the bolt with contract enough for us to unscrew it easierly......Nope! This thing isn't going anywhere.

Round 6

*lights blow-torch again* Again we heated the bolt up to red-hot, but this time we bent the bolt at the top over - so it look like an upside down 'L' - hoping that this would give us more leaverage ( Further away something is from the center, easier it is to turn/pull right ) but no, this little bolt was not going anywhere fast. After about 5 mins of using the new shaped bolt to attempt to unscrew it, it snapped. :-

Round 7

Lets drill the bugger out! Out comes the hacksaw and we cut the bolt level with the frame. Next out comes the drill and begin to drill it out ...... good god those bolts are tough, tooks us a while to drill it out, but we did in the end drill it out. Now that it's drilled out, we need to get the outer of the bolt out of the brake mounts ..... fun fun fun.

Round 8

Ahhhh, the end is in sight - after about 30 mins of trying to get the outside of the bolt out, we did it! Finaly .... but not Brake Booster untill I get a new bolt for it.

So yeh, Make sure your bolts go in properly =) *sleeps*

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Theres a lesson to be learnt here mate!!

grease your bolts!!!!!!!!!!!!

and if your going to try and heat something, trying heating whats on the outside! heating the bolt would have made it expand inside the brake mount!!! instead you should have tried to heat the mount, thus expanding the outer of the threads, not the inner!

Of course if the brake is still on the mount! You're fecked!!

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you dont heat the bolt to loosen it in an alu frame :S heating the bolt expands it !!! thus making it fit tighter :S which could crack brake mounts ect.... try getting a bolt thats snapped off 4mm bove the mount out ;) that required heating the frame and tac welding a rod on to get it out :P

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also that was a rather boring story

It twasn't suppose to be the most exciting story ever writen =) Just saying what happened! Middel and Ending I began to give up as I was so tired and started doing something else :P

how is you not using copper grease the boosters

Nah, wouldn't of helped. On the T-Pro frame the welding goes into the brake mount threads, so if you look down inside it you can see the weld. What had happened is we must of over tightended this one bolt and it had cut it's own thread into the weld, and once that was in the weld it was never comming out without a fight

heating the bolt expands it !!!

Yeh I know, but cooling it again will make it contact more - and I would rather take a blow tourch to a bolt than my frame any day!

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how is you not using copper grease the boosters fault, also that was a rather boring story, the beginning was ok but it needed more detail for the middle and ending, use adjectives a poor overall effort

Soz ard Mr A* english man.

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A few days ago I was riding to the place I was going to do Trials and my freewheel decided to eat my jeans, in the process it also pulled my wheel out of line and slightly bent the Drive Side Tug, no problem we got it fixed apart from the brakes were slightly out of line

Your trousers getting caught bent your chain tug?

:o

:ermm:

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you could have tryed useing an easy out they only tend to work on fairly unstiff bolts and this sounds like it was in a treat another thing iv nto used but is meant to be well usful is an impact driver it like a screw driver you hit and it spins id have thought that could have been helpfull i wouldnt have thought the bolts would rust in very fast though even if you hadnt greased them seems strage to me if you had only just iftted the booster was the bolt bent at all?

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Your trousers getting caught bent your chain tug?

Yeh I know! I did a good job of it :lol: - when it got caught it pulled the whole wheel towards the drive side and in the process, bent the tug.

i wouldnt have thought the bolts would rust in very fast though even if you hadnt greased them seems strage to me if you had only just iftted the booster was the bolt bent at all?

I don't think it did rust, we think that we over tightened the bolt ( Or there was slightly more welding on my frame than normal ) and the bolt cut a new thread into the weld, and once it was in that there was no hope. My grandad said he's seen it happen before, but this was the worse one he'd ever seen!

wd40 and bfi (brute force and ignorance) seems to work for me ;)

Oh there was a lot of brute force!

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The easiest thing you could have done was to heat the frame up with a blow torch. Aluminium expands very much quicker than steel. And before you say that something will happen to the frame - no, it won't. Not at such low temperatures. I used this method for unscrewing chainrings, freewheels, bb's and it always worked fine.

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next time it goes in make sure its greased up and buy decent tools that fit perfect and it wouldnt have rounded off (if you use them properly)

Erm, it was greased up and they were decent tools - the reason it rounded off was because it was stuck in so tight, that it would not turn at all - so all the force we were putting into trying to turn it with an alan key, just rounded it off. The most expensive alan key on the planet would not of got that out!

And before you say that something will happen to the frame
It probably wouldn't have done anything like you say, but I really didn't want to incase it did - hell it's only a week and a bit old!

Well atleast it's sorted now =)

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Thats an interesting story, i can't really comment on the things you could have done to make that story an easier experience but in that situation i would have panicked, sat down in a dark corner where i would plot to get it out then in rage take my anger on my bike praying that i would have made things easier but leaving me no closer to fixing my bike :-

ryno (Y)

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