bleed nipple snapped off in caliper

[hugodc]

The head snapped off my bleed nipple when i tried to undo it.
Anyone got any good ways of removing the bit left in the caliper? so far im looking at biting the bullet and going for a new caliper as its only a fiesta so shouldnt be too much

thanks

[sparkybean]

Drill it and re-tap? Can you buy oversized nipples?

Roll on the innuendos...

[BadgerBenji]

I would bite the bullet and chop it on a recon item. By the time you have drilled and tapped, and obtained another nipple, its not worth the time and aggro.

[Busa_Rush]

sparkybean said:

Drill it and re-tap? Can you buy oversized nipples?

Roll on the innuendos...

You can buy all sorts of nipples but you need to make sure they are long enough and have the same seat angle as the one you drill out. I'm not sure if the seat angle is standardised for bleed nipples but that's the important bit as that's how they seal.

[350Matt]

Try an easiout first but don't heave on its as these love nothng better than snapping in situ making it even harder to rescue.

Get the caliper hot as well ( not cherry red ) but 100 degrees or so as this helps loosen things off.

If that doens't work drill out very carefully with a slow increase in drill size but not enough to exceed the core size of thread and you can get to the point where you can pluck out the shell of the old nipple.

[leorest]

350Matt said:

Try an easiout first but don't heave on its as these love nothng better than snapping in situ making it even harder to rescue.

Get the caliper hot as well ( not cherry red ) but 100 degrees or so as this helps loosen things off.

If that doens't work drill out very carefully with a slow increase in drill size but not enough to exceed the core size of thread and you can get to the point where you can pluck out the shell of the old nipple.

Chances are that the broken bit is seized in (otherwise it would have undone in the first place) and it will just snep the eazyout off. IMHO small (<1/8in) eazyouts are only usefull for undoing threads which are only just too tight to undo with your fingers. Buy a recon/new caliper.

[jammy_basturd]

What happens when new/recon calipers are very hard to come by (as in my case)? Trying to drill it out, but as you've mentioned, the old one was seized in and picking out the shell is proving elusive. Anyone know of a company that do this sort of thing?

[leorest]

I believe spark erosion is the technique used. Don't know much about it but as it involves specialist equipment it's bound to be pricey. I guess it requires dissimilar metals (i.e. steel nipple in Aluminium calliper) otherwise the spark won't know which bit to erode first.