Today, all of our Halfords’ socket sets are made from super-tough chrome vanadium steel. Invest today, and it will last you a lifetime of maintenance, servicing, restoration. Whether you’re replacing the battery, changing a lightbulb or stripping down the engine, a decent socket set is essential.Ī Halfords socket set is a friend that will repay you many times over. Made from hard-wearing steel, socket sets are put to work whenever you need to work on your car. They contain a variety of ratchets and sockets that are used to tighten or loosen bolts safely. There was more mention of food & drink before I left, so I’m going back tomorrow to show him how to install the brake pads.Socket sets are a mechanic’s best friend. …Oh, I also discovered after all of that hand tapping that I can now crush hickory nutshells right-handed using only three fingers! I ate freshly made “Pigs in a Blanket” out on the back deck under a beautiful autumn sun surrounded by colorful hills & the smell of fallen leaves. What he lacks in mechanical prowess, my pal makes up for in cooking ability. I then had to patiently, methodically & arduously chase new threads into the caliper body using a hand tap & lots of cutting oil. I carefully continued drilling out the remainder of the M10x1.5x25 bolt & knocked out what collapsed threads I could. Who knows whenever the caliper bolts were last removed & what torque was used to reinstall them. To his son’s credit, that bolt was frozen, as if cold-fused in place. Once the extractor bedded in, it and the bolt went nowhere. With a hint of smug confidence I said, “Watch this!” I then inserted one of my handy-dandy Irwin bolt extractors into the hole & started to give it the business with a long ½” drive breaker bar. I then began center-drilling the bolt with a titanium-nitride coated step drill & cutting oil. I center punched the sheared bolt with a drift point. I firmly clamped the caliper to the plywood with C-clamps. I created a work surface by placing a thick piece of plywood over the rear tire which was lying flat under the tire well. The BMW was parked in his driveway with the rear end up on short jack stands. A further concentrated effort using the same technique resulted in the broken bolt & a huge argument in which the son stormed off into the sunset vowing to never help with the car again. Using an undersized ratchet, a tremendous effort (which included striking a cheater bar with a maul) managed to loosen one bolt. The passenger side caliper bolts proved extremely difficult for him to remove. His budding weight-lifting shade-tree mechanic son, who I affectionately refer to as Roid Hammerhand, had been in the early stages of replacing the rear brake pads for his father. What was left of the bolt was still firmly threaded within the caliper body. My BMW pal (who almost unjustifiably owns a 740il) requested my advice on what could be done regarding a rear brake caliper mounting bolt which had its head snapped off. I had a run in with a similar situation yesterday. The multi-spline extractor indeed provided an “easy” solution to a potentially huge problem & all the coinciding aggravation attached to it & passed on to others. Slowly turning the ratchet, the extractor splines firmly dug into the hex socket, broke the torque tension and reversed the setscrew out easily. This extractor was fit into a 13mm socket on a ratchet. I selected an extractor which bedded into the setscrew hex socket. Any further attempts would only succeed in further rounding out the hex socket flats, leaving me furiously SOL (sh*t outta luck). The possibly over-torqued setscrew defiantly resisted the removal attempts of standard hex keys. I believe this setscrew may have been “set” by someone else in the past, because the hex socket corners appeared ever-so-slightly rounded. Naturally, the setscrew is located in a supreme PITA location. I had to remove a 5mm hex socket setscrew in order to proceed on an important 500E project (subject of a future write-up). The best part about using this particular item is that no precision left-hand drilling & further precaution is required as the more commonly known version of “Easy-out” requires. This tool excels in removing buggered-up socket head (Allen) setcrews especially when the setscrew is located in a confined location. The multi-spline extractor is a different version of what is commonly called an “ Easy-out”. Here’s a tool set worth every penny especially when it comes to removing buggered up fasteners.
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