The drill is whining!
A customer left me a Northwave SPD 2-hole cleat shoe for repair.
It's being used for cyclocross, not MTB.
One of the M5 screw holes for mounting the toe spikes—not the cleats—had stripped out,
so when the spike was installed, the threads would spin forever without gripping.
By the way, the image above is after the repair.
↑This hole looks fine and actually is fine.
I installed a helicoil insert.
Similar jobs have come up before (→here) and (→here).
To be safe, I installed a longer M5 bolt,
and had the customer watch as I yanked and pulled on it with all my strength—
there wasn't even any play. The spike has a hexagonal grip that turns with a 10mm box wrench,
and even when tightened to what you'd normally never go that far,
there's no stripped thread spinning, and even when loosened, the helicoil doesn't come out. I've confirmed it holds firm.
This time it was for a spike hole, but the threaded plate
for mounting cleats is called a "cleat nut."
Following that logic, the spike version would be a "spike nut."
Some shoes have a design where you can remove the insole and swap out the cleat nut from inside the shoe.
In this case, I first checked whether this was that replaceable type of shoe, but it wasn't.
If it were replaceable, I could say "Have the manufacturer send one over—
Northwave doesn't do that here, so I don't know," but
even then, most of the time I'd be told "We can't tell right away if we can get one,
so just try to fix it anyway, long shot though it might be."
We didn't have that back-and-forth this time though.
A customer left me a Northwave SPD 2-hole cleat shoe for repair.
It's being used for cyclocross, not MTB.
One of the M5 screw holes for mounting the toe spikes—not the cleats—had stripped out,
so when the spike was installed, the threads would spin forever without gripping.
By the way, the image above is after the repair.
↑This hole looks fine and actually is fine.
I installed a helicoil insert.
Similar jobs have come up before (→here) and (→here).
To be safe, I installed a longer M5 bolt,
and had the customer watch as I yanked and pulled on it with all my strength—
there wasn't even any play. The spike has a hexagonal grip that turns with a 10mm box wrench,
and even when tightened to what you'd normally never go that far,
there's no stripped thread spinning, and even when loosened, the helicoil doesn't come out. I've confirmed it holds firm.
This time it was for a spike hole, but the threaded plate
for mounting cleats is called a "cleat nut."
Following that logic, the spike version would be a "spike nut."
Some shoes have a design where you can remove the insole and swap out the cleat nut from inside the shoe.
In this case, I first checked whether this was that replaceable type of shoe, but it wasn't.
If it were replaceable, I could say "Have the manufacturer send one over—
Northwave doesn't do that here, so I don't know," but
even then, most of the time I'd be told "We can't tell right away if we can get one,
so just try to fix it anyway, long shot though it might be."
We didn't have that back-and-forth this time though.