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Rounded out Allen bolt on Locking Hubs

nemesis_pyros

nemesis_pyros

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Well need to get my superwinch locking hubs out but I rounded out one of the allen key bolts and now I'm wondering if i gotta go get one of those easy out kits. I tried to hammer in a torx bit but that just rounded it out worse. Any of you guys have a trick for this or do I have to get myself one of those screw removal kits. Thanks for the help.
 
If someone else can chime in to confirm, it might save you some money...I believe you can just drill the head off, once you get the hub apart you will have plenty of surface to get vise grips or whatever on it.
 
dyeager535 said:
If someone else can chime in to confirm, it might save you some money...I believe you can just drill the head off, once you get the hub apart you will have plenty of surface to get vise grips or whatever on it.
Click to expand...

thats what i did :)
 
I tried easy outs and promptly broke them off in there . I drilled and drilled , and after all that I took the easy way out and hammered the cap until it broke , and replaced them with Warns , which have a bigger size allen head and won't strip after repeated removals .

You can get better bolts at a hardware store if you do get them off . But I don't think I like Superwinch hubs now .
 
dyeager535 said:
If someone else can chime in to confirm, it might save you some money...I believe you can just drill the head off, once you get the hub apart you will have plenty of surface to get vise grips or whatever on it.
Click to expand...

exactly like this :cool1:
 
ahh thanks guys great idea i'm gonna drill it out and find some new ones. Oh and I really wanted to get the warn hubs but all they had in my town at the time was the superwinch ones. I wish at the time I could have afforded to wait and get warns be cause i've only had these on 6 months now and my driver side hub rattles like its catching when I unlock it. Thus the reason for the hub to come off in the first place.
 
Usually what happens is the head seizes in the dial part of the lockouts. If you drill the head out to the same size as the threads the head will fall off. Then you can pull the dial out. Chances are you can easily get the remaining threaded part out. Usually I can get them out with bare fingers.
 
dyeager535 said:
If someone else can chime in to confirm, it might save you some money...I believe you can just drill the head off, once you get the hub apart you will have plenty of surface to get vise grips or whatever on it.
Click to expand...


This is what I did too.
 
there is a tool that is like an easy out except it is designed for allen head cap bolts. its basically an allen shaped tool with a taper to it. they come in a multy piece kit and each size has a working range just like easy outs. they wedge into the stripped out allen socket cause of the taper. they work better then easy outs cause they match the shape of an allen correctly, where as an easy out, even though it has the ridges to grip, is similar to a round shape. thats why there supposed to be used in a drilled hole. you would have to cut the easy out short to get it to work or drill the allen head to get a easy out to work, and drilling a hardened allen aint easy. any machine shop industrial supply should be able to get them. that old trick of pounding a metric allen or the next size up into the stripped allen doesent work....freekin rookies. :D j/k hope this helps out.
 
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i had the same problem with the Superwinch hubs i had on my old 10 bolt.

i was junking the axle and wanted to keep the small parts stuff like that.

i just gave up and threw the whole axle in the trash.
 
dyeager535 said:
If someone else can chime in to confirm, it might save you some money...I believe you can just drill the head off, once you get the hub apart you will have plenty of surface to get vise grips or whatever on it.
Click to expand...


This worked for me too. :D
 
dyeager535 said:
If someone else can chime in to confirm, it might save you some money...I believe you can just drill the head off, once you get the hub apart you will have plenty of surface to get vise grips or whatever on it.
Click to expand...

ive done this before on a set of warns, wasn't that hard to drill the head out, just make sure to have a sharp bit. i think i used a 3/16" bit. the hard part was getting the rest of the head out of the cap, correded in.
 
I had the same problem a few months ago. Spent two hours with alen wrench,wd40, heat, then chisel to screw head with a small flat blade to turn it, then tried drilling, three drillbits later I called the parts storte to find out how much new hubs were and how to do it. $50 a set and no suggestions.

I figured thats cheap enough that they need to be replaced anyway.

4 swings of a 3 lb hammer and the aluminum cap fell off the truck in pieces in under 30 seconds. The remaining screws twisted out by hand. had all new brakes, rotors bearings and u joinsts installed on the axle in two hours after that.
 
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