Re: wtf chain ring bolts

On 3/6/2025 5:11 AM, zen cycle wrote:

On 3/5/2025 5:06 PM, AMuzi wrote:

On 3/5/2025 3:08 PM, Catrike Ryder wrote:

The chain ring guard came so I set about mounting the chain rings and
the guard. I ordered new chain ring bolts because I didn't want to
disassemble the old crank. The new inner bolts had hex deep down
inside and I figure that was fine until I could not find a allen
wrench that fit them. I tried both metric and standard and nothing
fits. The bolts on my old crank take a #5 allen.
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Does anyone know what's going on?
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I ordered another set of 16mm bolts and they look like they have a
larger hex that's not set deep inside it.
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-- C'est bon
Soloman

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News to me; 5-arm 110mm chainring bolts are a universal commodity AFAIK.
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With a magnifier, see if they are just broached poorly or maybe if they are Torx.  If you succumbed to the bad idea of an aluminum chainring bolt that's very possible.

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I have a set that are torx, and it's a known "problem"
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https://www.reddit.com/r/cycling/comments/6drndl/ shimano_chainring_bolts_t30_torx_why/?rdt=44490
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If the bolts have crud built up and the light isn't really good, they can look like Allen,
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Just make sure whether they're Imperial or Metric :)

 Imperial are a distinct rarity here in USA ( I went all over hell to find a WW allen for my custom Hetchins long ago).
 More common are SAE, which outnumber, in fasteners and tools, metric to some great degree.
 That said, chainring bolts are a minuscule subset of fasteners and, as a standard consumer product, not-metric are virtually unknown (or at least I have never seen one. Not one.)
 It did actually turn out to be defective broaching which makes more sense than any other variant.