I'm sure many of us have had the experience of successfully carrying out major maintenance and part fittings, only to make a complete, embarrassing mess of something extremely simple. Here goes..
I picked up a rear hydraulic disc brake secondhand for a mere tenner. It has a split clamp lever, which is meant for you to be able to put it onto the bar without taking off the grips etc. Quite clever, but as this is a mtb brake, and mtbs now practically all use lock on grips which come off in seconds anyway, it's not as useful as it was in the days of stubborn slide on grips.
Still, I've used these before without incident, so I cleaned off and greased the somewhat rusty clamp bolts and began tightening it down.
OH SNAP! Literally.
I believe I tightened one of the bolts too far before doing the other one to balance the load. That bolt had bottomed out in the brake lever thread, jammed and then promptly snapped as I done it up 'just a bit more'. There was a few mm of thread sticking out which I thought I could weasel out with pliers/vice grips, but all I've achieved is mangling it further - it's definitely firmly stuck in there now:
Am I right in saying this is still salvageable if the bolt can be drilled out? The threads must still be intact so if the old bolt can be gotten out it'll still be useable. Is this the sort of thing a bike shop will be able to sort? I'm kind of hoping it can be done easily and cheaply as the purchase of this brake was meant to be on a strict budget....
I suppose I can think that it's better for it to have broken when installing than when in use. I've not had this failure before so I'm tempted to think the previous owner might have overtightened the bolts and left them weak.
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