On Fri, 16 Feb 2001, Tony Zanussi wrote:
> I would love to hear from all what taps and dies (sources also!) that you
> recommend for the minor work needed on small areas of bikes, or ANY that
> you have found usefull. I am not talking BB's, but mainly axles, dropouts,
> metric for 5 and 6mm, and ANY other, including pedals.
As a home mechanic I haven't found myself using anything more than the 5mm and 6mm taps yet.
5mm tap is really useful for cleaning up fender/rack eyelets on new bikes (sometimes they aren't tapped after painting). I also use them when drilling new eyelets into solid dropouts (did this on my folding bike, which has big BMX style dropouts).
The only time I can remember using the 6mm tap was to fix some Deore XT II thumbshifters that I bought. They were $5 because the threads for the clamp were really screwed up (someone tried to shove way too big of a bolt into them). I drilled all the way through and retapped for M6. They've been doing well since.
If I were repairing pedal threads I'd probably use the Edco helicoil style inserts. Loose Screws sells them, but they are too expensive to have "just in case".
alex