A friend of mine has a set of sockets which drive the edges of the bolt, not the
corners like most do. They look like standard sockets, except that the "flat"
edges have a faily shallow curve inwards. He demonstrated it to me by placing a
bolt into the socket, and turning the socket gently while holding the bolt in
his other hand, and sure enough, there was no contact at all with the corners of
the bolt, only with the flat edges. The benefits are a) it doesn't round the
corners, b) you can safely apply more force, since the contact area is greater,
and c) it works on bolts which already have rounded corners! The sockets are,
apparently, pretty expensive, so he only uses them when necessary for fear of
damaging them.
As for the square head, I had no problems removing mine with a standard hex
socket, but this was from above, not below, so access was easy, and also the
corners weren't rounded. I have a square "brake spanner" which is designed for
adjusting the drum brakes - since this is designed specifically for brakes,
though, I'm not sure of the range of sizes it would be available in.
Dean
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Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 12:20:32 -0700
From: Gary Tash <tashg@bmi.net>
Subject: Re: Gearbox filler plug?
My only problem with the filler plug is finding a wrench that I can get on in
the small space available. That and the complicating issue that the square
head is more round than square. Has anyone found a replacement with a
standard hex head? That alone would make it a lot easier, for me anyway.
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