where are the M9 bolts ?

DogBunny

DogBunny

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So, you can readily buy M9 dies in three different thread pitches, but why is it almost impossible to find M9 bolts, or nuts, or screws, or anything. Found a couple of bolts mostly from China sellers on eBay, found a single 1.25 thread pitch nut, and that's it, nothing else.
 
There are many thread diameters and pitches available but industry tries to minimize the stock they carry. M9 is classed as a 2nd choice thread whereas M8 and M10 are 1st choice preferred options. A quick scan on Ebay shows that M9 was very common on Vauxhall flywheels and also M9 helicoil is readily available. I guess the choice often depends on the strength required verses the space available e.g. in a confined area M8 may be too weak and M10 too large so M9 does the trick.
 
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Thanks for the reply from a life-long fellow member of the buckhorn gang.

92981a335_alloy steel shoulder screwl.gif

I have a pretty specific problem, and I think I finally have come up with a solution: buy the above bolt, and have someone (hopefully 2M) turn the shoulder down from 10 to 9mm. A lot of trouble, but it solves a vexing problem.
 
It turns out there is a way simpler solution that works for me. TooMany pointed out to me that the McMaster-Carr bolt is hardened and would be hard to turn down. He suggested using a 3/8" bolt which translates to 9.525mm, and turning it down. In reality, I have a sample typical 3/8" bolt that caliper measures to 9.41mm, and this is a diameter that will work for me as is, no turning required. Thank you TooMany!
 
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Oh well. A day late, and a... advice short. I don't know if you have a "Runnings" store in the Great State of Texas, but the one near me has a fantastic selection of metric hardware. Multiple grades, pitches, and my favorite: stainless! (unlike chrome, where you shine it up and when it rusts [inevitable] you replace it. Stainless? Shine it up again when it starts getting dingy.)
That TooMany is always on top of things! :thumbsup:
 
59Tebo said:
Oh well. A day late, and a... advice short. I don't know if you have a "Runnings" store in the Great State of Texas, but the one near me has a fantastic selection of metric hardware. Multiple grades, pitches, and my favorite: stainless! (unlike chrome, where you shine it up and when it rusts [inevitable] you replace it. Stainless? Shine it up again when it starts getting dingy.)
That TooMany is always on top of things! :thumbsup:
Click to expand...
Just be careful of using stainless in high stress areas. Stainless might look pretty but there are many different grades just like other hardware and some is way weaker than say a grade 5 inch size bolt.

I'm sure someone here can talk better facts about that!

Jim you have information on this?
 
I don't have a "Runnings" store, but just a couple of miles away, I do have a really great fastener supply house that has always allowed the public to make little-ass purchases. Was there today, and bought a letter "U" drill bit (a little smaller than 3/8") for my project. They cater to contractors, but also have whatever the Austin hi-tech industry needs, so lots of metric stainless stuff on hand. But, if I can plan ahead, or can wait a couple of days, I usually get what I need cheaper from McMaster-Carr. Occasionally I buy from China on eBay. Bought some hard-to-find stainless metric wingnuts as well as stainless metric wing bolts that way. If you can wait for the slow boat from China, Chinese sellers on eBay are also the significantly cheapest way to buy taps and helicoil kits and refills.
 
kshansen said:
Just be careful of using stainless in high stress areas. Stainless might look pretty but there are many different grades just like other hardware and some is way weaker than say a grade 5 inch size bolt.

I'm sure someone here can talk better facts about that!

Jim you have information on this?
Click to expand...
The most common stainless hardware is made from A-2 stainless... AKA 18-8 stainless... AKA 304 stainless. It's tensile strength is roughly the same as a grade 5 bolt. And for just about everything on our XS's, tensile and/or shear strength is the main concern. As a rough guide, a metric 8.8, grade 5 and A-2 stainless are pretty close to each other. There's very few 10.9 bolts on our bikes, but if you do run across one, it's considerably stronger than A-2 stainless and you definitely wouldn't want to replace one with stainless. Metric 10.9 would be the rough equivalent of a grade 8.
 
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That's good to know, Jim. My idea, however, was to replace as much hardware as I can (i.e. those JIS screws) with stainless cap head, funnel head, and button head allens. They shouldn't represent anything too high strength, right?
 
DSC01751.jpg

So, I found a suitable 3/8" bolt for my project, but I still needed to reduce the shank diameter by about 0.02". Above is my Fred Flintsone lathe kluge: high-torque drill motor in vice with trigger zip-tied "on" and foot control. As the bolt rotated I stroked it with a big bastard file. I've used this set-up before, can't remember exactly for what, but this time it completely failed. Material removal was way too slow. Maybe the bolt was rotating too slowly -- it's a pretty slow drill motor. Maybe the file wasn't aggressive enough. I also tried a strip cut from a broken silicon carbide sanding belt (see next pic), and a strip cut from a broken coarse grit diamond sanding belt. They didn't work either.

DSC01760.jpg

So, I went to this. Silicon carbide belt on an 8" expanding rubber drum. Took less than a minute to get what I wanted. Would've started with this, but I was afraid of lack of control of amount of material removed.

DSC01752.jpg

And this is what I made: a high-tolerance hinge pin for a specific application. However, like an idiot, while drilling a pilot for the hitch clip hole, I broke a 1/16" hardened drill bit flush with the hinge pin. It would have been faster to start over with a new bolt, but I always like to see what is possible, and you never learn unless you try, so I spent the next hour trying to get the stuck bit out. Hence the ugly hole and the vice marks next to it. I can tell you that a 1/16" stuck broken hardened bit is extremely hard to remove because it is so small; there is virtually no room to work on it. Wasted a couple more hardened drill bits on getting it out. Got it out by drilling through from the other side, and punching it out -- not as simple as that sounds.
 
Beags64 said:
Careful ! Spinnin' a part in my drill press/vertical lathe is what prompted me to buy my first lathe...boy oh boy did that turn out to be VERY slippery slope (that I' still sliding down!)
Click to expand...
Good thing about those "slippery slopes" once you get started you start to pick up speed so it gets easier everyday!
 
Beags64 said:
Careful ! Spinnin' a part in my drill press/vertical lathe is what prompted me to buy my first lathe...boy oh boy did that turn out to be VERY slippery slope (that I' still sliding down!)
Click to expand...
I have no room for a lathe, or for pretty much any new tool of any kind, which is probably a blessing in disguise. It's kind of funny when while searching for one of those tools that you only used once or twice you come across a half dozen other tools that you completely forgot you had... I have lots of one-time only use Harbor Freight specialty automotive tools... they all paid for themselves during that one use.
 

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