As the title says i rung one of the bolts on the brake disc as i'm painting the rims. I was thinkin i can weld a bit of a bolt onto it and get a spare one to replace it. Now here comes the silly question lol. I have an arc welder but would i be better off giving it to somebody with a tig welder? would it create less heat? or should i go ahead?
you would be better off to grind the head off the bolt carefully, so as not to touch the disc, once the disc is off, you should be able to remove the rest of the bolt with vice grips... any heat and you will risk damaging the alloy rim seal or wheel bearing...
Dude don't use an arc welder - I think you'll create problems for yourself. It throws a lot of heat into the metal and (depending on the type of stick you're using) can penetrate quite deep which is not what you want here. Personally I'd be using a MIG welder (with gas or gasless). TIG would be my second option. I'd be grabbing a washer, welding the washer to the bolt, grabbing a nut then welding that to the washer. Pretty standard metal fabrication approach to this problem. Once it's cool grab a socket and start easing it out. Otherwise drill and tap may be a backup. Oh and make sure you clean it up real good with a wire brush first - aids adhesion of the weld.
+1 on mig - go for gasless and don't bother with the gas shield as it's being released from the wire itself Have something with a hole in it the correct diameter to protect the surrounding metal from splatter - I've used the cheap aluminium flashing from Bunnings You may find the heating and cooling from welding will loosen the bolt peace out
Cheers for the replies lads. There are some great tips there in those last few posts. Now back to the problem in hand it's sorted but just to let ya's know and anyone who might find themselves in this situation i rung 5 out of the 12 bolts on the brake discs but what i didn't know that a punch inserted to the centre of the bolt and slapped with a hammer 3 times will break the loctite seal after finding this out most of the bolts were removed with a bit of effort but they weren't a major problem although 3 bolts which i had damaged 1 on the left 2 on the right were badly rung but i tapped them with a lump hammer until they were flattened back down 2 mill or so and then tapped in a good quality alal key head which attached to a ratchet and they came free eventually. Now in saying that i went to the breakers to get replacement bolts which i thought might be few and far between but i was told to search a tub of brake disc bolts which there was any amount of match ups which leads me to think that they are a standard bolt for all yamahas (correct me if i'm wrong here) so don't be shy of using any of the above techniques but as they lads say be careful not to damage the rim itself or the bearings if at all possible... great forum boys thanks for the help once again
