Carry a spare coil bolt with you.

[togamac]

Rode the bike 6 miles to a neighboring town's park with high hopes of some nice finds but the nylon bolt holding my coil to the lower rod broke after 5 minutes of hunting. Bummer, but a nice day for a ride! And wouldn't you know it, not one hardware store in this town. Lowe's and Home Depot has chased them all away.

Thanks to someone on this forum I did manage to buy a pair of nylon toilet hold-down bolts the next day and they do the trick. I'm carrying one as a spare from now on and would recommend that you fellows and gals consider doing the same so's you don't get stranded.

I recall seeing an old engineering text book that described a similar breaking bolt problem the steam engines had about 100 years or so ago. The problem was fixed by making the diameter of the unthreaded portion of the bolt the same diameter as the minor thread diameter. That fix equalized the stress over the whole length of the bolt instead of concentrating it at the thread root. I don't know if Garrett can do that in this case but they sure must be getting a lot of complaints about these bolts breaking and it may be one solution they could look at. John, if you know anyone in engineering at Garrett would you please pass this tidbit along?

HH all!

 

[tabman]

I'm really bad about having back-ups for most everything. When something breaks it's most often the thing that I don't have. A few turns of duct tape around your bike frame might come in handy one day. You could of rolled up a length of it and stuck it through the search coil hole and secured the ends with more tape for a temporary fix. Or you could have cut a small branch off of a tree or shrub the size of the hole and secured it with the duct tape.

tabman

 

[Grubstake]

I said that, about the toilet seat bolts, last year, when someone asked, good back ups. Grubstake

 

[mudpuppy]

Yeah its good to be a McGuyver in field, even a length of your shoestring, or a twig poked through the bolt hole could at least keep a hunt going...zip ties and black tape are very handy for lots of things...and super glue! Especially on a bad cut like stepping on a bottle bottom, a small tube of superglue can really save the day there!
Mud

 

[upnorth]

I said that, about the toilet seat bolts, last year, when someone asked, good back ups. Grubstake

Good tip.

 

[fongu]

I learned that lesson the hard way last year and the toilet bolts worked great. I ordered two spare sets from Garrett and I've broke one of them since then, but still have the toilet bolts for emergencies. Great tip.

 

[HUSB22]

NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT THAT ALWAYS CARRY EXTRA BATTERIES THANX

 

[jughed440]

Yeah its good to be a McGuyver in field, even a length of your shoestring, or a twig poked through the bolt hole could at least keep a hunt going...zip ties and black tape are very handy for lots of things...and super glue! Especially on a bad cut like stepping on a bottle bottom, a small tube of superglue can really save the day there!
Mud

I've used the twig trick in a pinch, but super glue on a bad foot cut in order to keep the hunt going?? That tip is good enough to send to Heloise

The big chain hardware stores sell nylon bolts...cheap insurance.