Threated rivet tool set manual#
Threated rivet tool set full#

Afterward, she carried an oversized bottle cage in its place. We had it welded in Lesotho, but then it broke again (no fault of the riv-nut bosses). The Anything Cage eventually broke-as did most of Salsa’s V1 Anything Cages. Ultimately, Gin’s Surly Troll saw thousands of miles from Cape Town to Tanzania after these rivnut bottle cage mounts were installed. According to some frame builders, this is the key step to not harming the integrity of the frame when adding braze-ons. Either way, after drilling the holes, deburr the edges with a small round file or a sharp knife. If the holes are too tight, use a fine round file to remove excess material until the rivet nuts can slide into place. As shown below, the clamping area of a rivnut is only 1.5mm. Then use either a 7mm drill bit, or a step drill bit to finish the 7mm hole. If you aren’t using a clamping guide as outlined in 1b above, drill a pilot hole using a sharp 3mm (or 1/8″) drill bit. Better yet, the guide could be fabricated from a flat piece of steel bar stock. Then, by securing the block to the fork blade with pipe clamps, the holes would serve as a guide for accurate drilling.

Ultimately, this wasn’t an issue, but if I were to do it again, I’d make a wooden block guide with a drill press using a 7mm bit. Fortunately, it wasn’t off by much, but it tweaked the alignment ever so slightly and caused the cage to twist. In the end, once the cage was bolted in place, I realized that one of the bosses was misaligned along its cylindrical axis. Even after I created a small pilot hole for each boss, the bigger drill bit shifted to the side a little. In short, I found that a standard power drill was difficult to align on the cylindrical steel tube the bit tended to drift around the tube. To be clear, I thought of creating a drill guide after the fact. And if you’re adding mounts to the downtube, hold a cage and bottle in place to check for adequate tire clearance. Take foot clearance into account if you are angling it rearward. If you are adding rivnut bosses to a fork, make sure to carefully consider what angle you want the cage to be oriented, as well as how it will interact with other components and luggage, such as a rack. Simply hold the cage against the fork or downtube and mark the three holes with a Sharpie. Mark the Three-pack Boss pattern using a cage Now, a step-by-step how-to guide with notes on what we’d do differently.

Salsa Anything Cage or King Many Things Cage.

3mm and 7mm Drill Bit (and/or step drill bit).

Threated rivet tool set manual#

Riv-nut tool ( bestseller on Amazon and a cheaper, manual option).

Carbon steel rivet nuts ( 50-pack on Amazon).

There are DIY options (see the video at the bottom of this post) as well as a $15 manual setter that does the same thing (linked below and shown above-right).

As long as you have a drill, the biggest investment is the actual rivet nut tool. However, there are also zinc-plated carbon steel options that might work even better with a chromoly frame.įortunately, there aren’t too many things you need to make this happen, aside from a standard power drill and a few odds and ends.

After a bit of research, I chose to use stainless steel rivet nuts as they won’t corrode when in contact with Chromoly steel like aluminum inserts would. Rivnuts come in several types of metal as well. To match the threading of a standard bottle boss, you need the M5 x 0.80 size rivnuts. “Rivnuts,” also known as rivet nuts or threaded rivet inserts, come in all shapes and sizes.

Threated rivet tool set full#

Alternatively, look into have a frame builder braze on threaded water bottle bosses, or there are many other ways to mount bags and cages-stay tuned for a full list. In the end, it’s much cheaper than buying a new fork. Unless I was expecting to haul an extremely heavy load, or to encounter massive drops and jumps, I personally wouldn’t hesitate to do this with any production steel MTB frame. That said, steel MTB forks/frames are built to carry a lot of weight, and to withstand very rugged circumstances. So, if you are interested in drilling holes in a perfectly good steel frame, here’s how it went and what we used to make it happen.īefore we go on, are you sure you want to drill holes in your frame? Be aware that rivnuts require rather larges holes (~7mm) and some folks suggest that they might weaken the frame. it’s more about how I did it and what I’d do differently if I were to do it again. Now that we have another related post in the works, I thought I’d finally dig up my notes and photos to share what I learned. The rivnut on the middle-right is partially compressed next to others left uncompressed.