Tried to get the fin plate out, but will not come out ot these partictular boards, older fin unlimited boxes, both the screw heads snapped near the top. Any help is welcomed
pic please
“both the screw heads snapped near the top”
Are you talking about two different boards with the same problem? FU single boxes have just one screw.
Like bb30 said, pics would help ( A lot)
The later FU boxes have a notch near the center of the channel that allows you to remove the plate. Early FU boxes did not have this notch.
Two ways to approach this.
Soak the hell out of the bolt/plate with Liquid Wrench or another rust solvent, then use needle nose vise grips to get the bolt out of the plate.
Or,
Carefully cut a notch in the channel that duplicates the notch found on newer boxes. Remove and replace plate with a new one. If you have a router and a steady hand you could cut the notch in a matter of minutes.
Drill out the bolt and tap a new and slightly larger hole sized to a new and larger bolt.
It will be difficult to drill out a bolt in one of those plates since they sit loose in the channel and will not stay put once a drill bit makes contact.
Thank you for all the ideas. Sammy A I have two boards with the same problem and these are both early fins unlimited boxes without the channel to get the fin plate out. I will get pictures of both boxes up tonight after work
OK. Wasn’t sure if one board, or two. I think your best bet is to cut a notch in the channel and just take the plates out.
Do you have a router?
I have used two techniques to remove screws. One is as Sammy says, carefully route out a vertical slot and then an angled shelf to remove the plate. You can cut the angle with a sharp narrow chisel and a hammer but you need to go slowly and be patient and not smack the chisel too hard and crack the glass/resin around the box. I have also drilled out screws on these boxes. Here’s how I did it. I took a long nose vice grip and firmly grasped the plate. (They are cheap at Harbor Freight) The narrow nose vice grip wedges the plate in the horizontal slot. Then I took a second small vice grip and fatigued the screw near the plate until this part popped off. Next I took a hole punch and center punched the screw and while holding the vice grip with one hand, I drilled out the screw with a small drill bit. I use a screw extractor & lube to remove the remaining section of screw. You could also upsize the drill bit one size at a time and then re-tap the threads. I only do the second method when the customer insists that the board remain original as it takes a loooong time and you really need to know how to use these tools! Just my 2c…
If you can get a pair of needle nose vice grip pliers on the broken screw remaining in plate, after soaking with a mix of acetone and transmission fluid overnight, I would try turning the screw in to loosen it. Backside of screw is probably corroded (rather then section inside plate), and bound screw up resulting in head breaking off. If you could get remaining section of screw loose, I would turn it in as far as I could, and then use a pick and try tur turn it in the remainder of the way until it came out the inside.
i had it happen once, and the method I described worked. I then chased the threads in the plate with a tap prior to using again.