Helicoils and Brake Carriers
Turbo Mini Forums

Doing the brakes on my wife’s car, single pot sliding caliper jobs and one of the threads on the carrier which the “slider bolt” (not sure of the correct term) screws into is badly chewed up. Given the way they are loaded can I drill it out and helicoil it or do I need to replace the carrier? If it helps my wife does not have life insurance.

Struggling to visualise the arrangement. Does the slider bolt have a thread next to the head then a longer plain sliding shank? If so I’d not worry about helicoiling it as long as there’s sufficient meat around the thread. But how has the thread got mangled in the first place?

Not a thing wrong with helicoils when used correctly.

Many alloy brake calipers will have helicoiled threads anyway

Helicoil is usually stronger than a thread in the base material anyway.

9.85 @ 145mph
202mph standing mile
speed didn't kill me, but taxation probably will

No probs with a helical,

https://youtu.be/LpDduCVUy6w

Thanks everyone, figured I’d check first. I’m pretty sure that the damage to the threads was a result of hamfistedness in the past.

The slider bolt threads need to obviously be perfectly normal to the mounting, so using a pistol drill and hand held tap wrench is likely to generate issues.
I’d recvomend using a milll or at least drill press to drill and tap.