Vee-Dub Carb Repair

I've been busy at work, but I finally found some time to get back to work on the vw-powered bike. Working on a stripped-out carb stud. For some reason I'm too cheap to buy a helicoil kit, but since I've got this handy dandy lathe around I took a different approach. Grabbed a piece of well-loved mild steel from my scrap bucket and chucked it up in the lathe.


Turned it down into an 8mm tip with a 10mm shank.


I don't have a metric transposing gear for my lathe so I used dies for the threading. Turned out pretty good I'd say.


Drilled and tapped out the carb body for the stud and set it in place with a healthy dose of red loctite.


It'll never "blend in", but it's plenty strong with the 10mm-coarse threads holding it in place. Scrounged up a crusty 8mm nut from my spare hardware bin since it had a bolt in it before and therefore no extra nut. After it sets thoroughly I can continue with my carb rebuild.