All 3 bolts are fine lower one is stripped not sure why as the bike was brand new and I only rode it once at a park till I noticed.
by a1ex_grayson
All 3 bolts are fine lower one is stripped not sure why as the bike was brand new and I only rode it once at a park till I noticed.
by a1ex_grayson
11 Comments
I would say it is no more than half as safe as it used to be.
Personally, I wouldn’t ride it.
Try putting a heli coil in there. They’ll hold stronger than the aluminum threads ever will.
Im probably gonna get downvoted for this, but I’d run it if it were tapped. It’s not like you’re gonna rip a bolt out from shredding too hard. It really comes down to if you want a new stem or not.
I would tap it if it were cheaper. I’d need to buy a set of taps though so probably wouldn’t bother.
The risk is the bar rotating from a jolt. Maybe enough for you to pitch forward off balance and crash. While there are four bolts, only two hold tension and right now just 1. Tap it but know you need to torque it to the right amount across all four to be worth the effort
I would just get a new stem. They’re not that expensive and you save yourself a lot of hassle.
Re tap…there is nothing to be worried about. As good as new..
They retap stuff in cars all the time.
Retapping would require an oversized screw, would it fit in the recess?
Get a new one. Yes you can probably fix it with an insert such as a helicoil but…
I had a bar roll incident this year in a bad place and the result was many thousands of medical bills, probably 6mo+ off the bike (still recovering 3.5 months later with limited mobility due to a broken wrist requiring a plate).
Mine wasn’t a mechanical failure, but I’d be pissed if I saved $35-150 on a stem only to end up breaking a wrist by screwing up the fix.
If you’re that worried about re-tapping it, you can buy generic helicoil inserts on Amazon and it will be stronger than new.
You can’t retap it easily, you’d have to go up in size and there isn’t enough material there for that. It’s M6 and the next size up is M8. You can’t go back to m6 because material is missing so the hole is now too big.
You have to use a heli-coil insert. Those come in kits with the tools to install them. They are easy to install, just follow the instructions. Correctly installed they are stronger than the original bolt in aluminum.
Price out a generic heli-coil copy thread repair set on Amazon and compare that to the price of a used stem on Facebook marketplace, then decide from there.