"Drillium" on DUC32 upper triple clamp, or maybe I went to far.. !?

[patineto]

Long story short one of my DUC's is a little tweak and requires a little assistance to get the upper clamp in and out (is very minimal but is there)

In any case taking the clamp out I mess the really thin part where the slot reside on the clamp (with a drift, dummy), well I decide to cut it out..


Yes I mount the clamp on another fork to take the pictures, but they will go on my ML-7.


I just hope I don't died trying it, actually the material I remove was about a 1/16 of a inch thick and I wonder why Maverick did not do it the way I did it in the first place since it look so much better (in my taste at least)..


Wish me luck...

Oh, I have another of the exact same clamps just in case this one develops a crack or something.

Ps: i try to make all the radius as smooth as possible (I'm kind of a hack) to avoid stress raisers..

[banks]

Tell us what speed the obnoxious whistling starts!

In the almost 30 years in bike shops, I have seen worse, larger and more scary drillings.

[patineto]

Tell us what speed the obnoxious whistling starts!

Doh I did not think about noise...

In the almost 30 years in bike shops, I have seen worse, larger and more scary drillings.

Oh sure I have work on bikes for 30 years too and I have seeing much scarier stuff..

Actually I only trace the shape of the hole on the clamp, the rest of the structure is about 1/2" in thickness..

Sincerely do to the nature of double triple clamps I don't think anything is going to happen, then again if you don't see me posting anymore maybe something did happen..

[patineto]

So far two rides with a few dozen small jumps (around one foot) and the clamp still fine, I will try to go for a few more rides and then take the clamp out for examination..

[Alpamayo]

The reason ??? the weight ???? cosmetic .... a sudden crisis of madness

[patineto]

The reason ??? the weight ???? cosmetic .... a sudden crisis of madness

Boredom what is all..

Well and that i mess up the clamp in the first place and was all wonky anyway..

[patineto]

Two more "Hard" rides on the weekend and everything looks fine, I took the clamps out last night and examine it for cracks/bend, etc and it looks perfect..

Ps: i do know it was kind of silly to do this, but sometimes I just fun to experiment..

[Harryman]

I bet there was beer involved......

[patineto]

Now mount them on the ML7 where it belongs.


I just install my new HOPE E4 brakes so awesome.

[patineto]

I bet there was beer involved......

Nope I don't even drink, I was just bored one day at the house with a big snow storm outside with nothing to do..

[Carl Mega]

You make me feel better about my own situation. I drilled a small hole to extract, well, an extractor that broke when I stripped one of the clamping bolts. Embarrassing situation since I could have removed the bolt without the extractor...that is, until it broke. Anyway, I've been running my top clamp this way since this summer and many many drops without issue. Your modification is massive tho!

[patineto]

You make me feel better about my own situation. I drilled a small hole to extract, well, an extractor that broke when I stripped one of the clamping bolts. Embarrassing situation since I could have removed the bolt without the extractor...that is, until it broke. Anyway, I've been running my top clamp this way since this summer and many many drops without issue. Your modification is massive tho!

A broken bolt what a pain to deal with, I do recommend you to get a new clamp because if you keep riding it like it you are going to "wear" the fork leg with all the up and down movement of the clamp....

Actually just take a caliper and measure the wall thickness on the part I cut off and you will find is no more than 1 1/16"m is scary thin as it is..

I did say on the tittle that maybe I when to far but so far no issues, well this week is snowing far to much so I can not ride the Maverick, but so far I have 5 trouble free rides on the clamp

[Carl Mega]

I was going to take a picture but it's on the underside. My threads were preserved so I'm good with being able to clamp. The stupid screw extractor got jammed in at an angle so I had to do a little creative surgery to get it out and regain use of the hole.

If I don't hear from you, I'll assume the worst and put in an order for a new upper clamp.

[patineto]

I was going to take a picture but it's on the underside. My threads were preserved so I'm good with being able to clamp. The stupid screw extractor got jammed in at an angle so I had to do a little creative surgery to get it out and regain use of the hole.

If I don't hear from you, I'll assume the worst and put in an order for a new upper clamp.

Your problem sound far complicated than mine, how deep is the bolt inside the clamp..??

[patineto]

I was going to take a picture but it's on the underside. My threads were preserved so I'm good with being able to clamp.

I have a crazy idea for you, auto body shops use a type of welder to take dents out that works by welding a small rod to the body work, maybe they can weld one of this rods to your bolt and then you can extract it that way..

I hope it works, at least is not to much to lose.

[Jon Richard]

How is that upper still faring? One of my peeves about the DUC32 is wrestling the upper on and off and when you try to spread it open a bit by prying or wedging the slot it just deforms the hole, I was thinking yours would open up "rounder" when doing so with the relief's you made. Have you found this one to be easier to get on and off?