[CR]How To Remove Huret Success Ti RD Pulley Cage Pivot Bolt?

(Example: Books:Ron Kitching)

From: "R.S. Broderick" <rsb000@hotmail.com>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 11:53:41 -0500
Subject: [CR]How To Remove Huret Success Ti RD Pulley Cage Pivot Bolt?

Now that those Specialites Huret catalogs and brochures have been posted to WoolJersey such that others may reference said material and thereby better understand just exactly what I am about to discuss (...you just KNEW there had to be some ulterior motive on my part), I would like to solicit the collective wisdom and experience of the CR List in helping me solve a vexing little problem.

I have need of replacing the jockey wheels on a late 1970's vintage Huret Success Ti rear derailleur and find myself confronted with a bit of a challenge (...no, not a Challenger, that would be a different model of derailleur). While the outer jockey wheel axle / bolt is easy enough to extract, the inner one (...part number 2156 as shown toward the very top right of page 25 in the 1978 Huret catalog - http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/broderir/Catalogs-Posters/Huret/1978/Page+25.jpg.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1) is proving to be more problematic. The difficulty stems from the fact that this pivot bolt has a very wide slotted head with a particularly thin and somewhat shallow channel such that a typical flat bladed screw driver is not well suited for use (...if the screwdriver blade is wide enough, it is generally too thick whereas if the blade is thin enough to fit inside the slotted channel, its width is too narrow to allow enough purchase so as to remove the bolt before destroying its head in the attempt). On early non Ti versions of the Success rear derailleur, this pivot bolt passed through the body of the derailleur itself and threaded into a simple and removable nut on its backside where that same nut is easily accessible from the front of the unit, thereby facilitating its straightforward extraction. However, on later Success rear derailleurs including all of the Ti models, there are a pair of tapped and threaded extrusions on the lower body into which this pulley cage pivot bolt actually threads (...these upper and lower holes serving as a clever demountable lower pivot bracket which allow this unit to accommodate either a 24 or 28 tooth maximum freewheel cog depending upon which hole was chosen to mount the pulley cage assembly) with no nut on its backside, and this means that one must use the slotted head of the pulley cage pivot bolt itself to extract same.

Realizing that use of a good penetrating oil will go along way toward making the whole job a lot easier, options for removal that I have considered thus far include (...in no particular ordered sequence):

1) Take one of my older and otherwise disposable screwdrivers having an appropriately wide blade and re-profile its tip using a bench grinder such that it would then be narrow enough to fit the channel in the pivot bolt head.

2) Drive, or better yet ride, on down to my local gun shop and see if they happen to have a suitable gunsmith's screwdriver that might be employed to efficiently remove the pivot bolt in question without undue chamfering.

3) Find a hacksaw blade, or perhaps a hardened straight edge which would likely be less flexible, the back spine of which has a width appropriate to fit snugly into the slotted channel of the pivot bolt head and then grab said blade with a pair of vice-grips and use this impromptu tool as a makeshift screwdriver in an attempt to extract that pesky bolt.

One bit of good news here is that I have a whole bag full of NOS 2156 chrome plated Huret pivot bolts on hand, so I do have some latitude for "error" in the removal process. But before I go about employing any of the aforementioned techniques, or worse yet that tried and true "brute force" solution, I thought that I would seek the wise counsel and advice of others who may well have already developed an elegant and less potentially damaging methodology for dealing with this same circumstance.

Robert "the blind, who picked up his hammer and saw" Broderick ...the "Frozen Flatlands" of South Dakota Sioux Falls, USA