Little bleeder

Trick I was taught is to heat the nipple till its frying spit, hold nipple in vice and turn the caliper around it- don’t quite know why this is different from trying to unscrew nipple but it works and you don’t shear the nipple. If nipple is sheared- mig welder in the broken nipple to weld a red hot blob that you then hold in vice to unscrew calipers. I have never drilled out a nipple .
 
Tried drilling on a Parallel Twin 500 Ducati that was a rusty blob; very easy to go too deep. Gauge off a separated nipple to be sure of depth.
 
motoddrob said:
I need to get a set of left hand drills I think. Good job Paul. I have a couple of halo brembos with broken nipples somewhere.
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Drill and knock a Torx bit in there to get some grip.
Use a ratchet on the Torx bit whilst pushing down to avoid the Torx tool turning in the screw.
+ heat
The metal of those bleed screws is very soft.
Paul
 
If your nipple has snapped off undoing it using a perfect hex head you’ve got to consider how ,after much risky drilling ,you are going to remove the stuck taper? Torx head will spread what’s left, rather like the unfortunately named easi-out. I have been removing these for thirty odd years and have never had to drill any of them and haven’t buggered a caliper up. Remember you can’t helicoil or run a tap down the nipple thread- Paul has managed to remove the tapered end but it does look like the drills wandered to one side, compromising the thread.
Mig welder trick never fails.
 
Exmoor beast said:
If your nipple has snapped off undoing it using a perfect hex head you’ve got to consider how ,after much risky drilling ,you are going to remove the stuck taper? Torx head will spread what’s left, rather like the unfortunately named easi-out. I have been removing these for thirty odd years and have never had to drill any of them and haven’t buggered a caliper up. Remember you can’t helicoil or run a tap down the nipple thread- Paul has managed to remove the tapered end but it does look like the drills wandered to one side, compromising the thread.
Mig welder trick never fails.
Click to expand...
Thread is fine.
I had a set of 7mm bleed screws to hand if the worst came to the worst.
I totally agree about the Torx spreading the screw remains, but when you've drilled out the 6mm screw to 4mm, what's left is wafer thin. It just needs a means of gripping it.
My skills in welding would make me melt the whole caliper.
Paul
 
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