The threads that take the clamp bolts that hold the front axle on my A10 are completely knackered. I went to tighten them up prior to a 700 mile weekend trip and they just turned.
All four are about in the same shape - 47 years of working in and out of the alloy has finally done them in.
I replaced a couple of the stripped bolts, swapped bolts and washers around till I could find enough thread in each hole to hold some torque, and was lavish with the Loctite. I'll be stopping at intervals Friday to see how they're doing, because the last thing I need is for the front wheel to part company 40 feet in front of a big truck at 65 MPH on I-79 around Morgantown.
So as SOON as I get back, I need to fix them.
I did it wrong on a Harley Panhead years ago. The same thing happened, so I drilled the hole bigger, threaded it for 3/8 - 20, and cut some threaded rod to use as a stud. That lasted about 10 miles before the whole end of the fork broke, because there wasn't enough material around the bigger hole to hold the strain.
What is the best way to try to save these fork sliders? Is there a way of providing strong new threads that removes a MINIMUM of metal from what's already there? Can one of our machining or race shops carefully mill it out and insert a very thin threaded insert that would not take away from the strength of the slider? Is there something like a Heli-coil that will go into these random buggered British threadforms and be a good fix? I don't want to bodge it, and the chances of finding another set of sliders with good threads after all these years is pretty slim - I'm sure they're all in the same shape.
Thanks!
Lannis