So I just bought this bike and it needed a lot of work - no pads - so forget about the pads - I noticed the threads were bad when I removed the pads - cleaned them with a tap - ran the pin bolt back in - enough threads to drive the head of the pin bolt through the locking O-ring in the blind hole - but not enough to pull it out - so it be stuck - anyway - yeah - wish the holes in the inboard half of these were drilled through but the holes are blind so I cant punch it out from the back side - the bike runs well and is worth saving - but it has a lot of odd issues - it sat outside of a mobile home trailer for many years exposed to the weather so I'm going through most of the fasteners - oddly - everything works on this bike - it polished up quite well - last week I re-built the front brake system - so issues with the caliper there - but the rotor was badly warped - I'll pull the wheel and caliper - I'll see if it can be saved - fortunately I have all 3/8-24 inserts to fix the threads - and an overhead bill to ensure I install the inserts perfectly straight - just a bummer that this is taking up ridin time - although I'm ridin my 92 fxstc to work so I get to smile at least twice a day this week.....

 

so I pulled the caliper - if you look at the last photo you can see the lock ring in the blind hole that the pad pin shoulder seats on - welded a threaded rod onto the cap of the pin bolt - pulled it with my slide hammer - split the caliper - squared up the caliper half on my overhead mill table - drilled out the stripped threads with a 25/64 drill bit - went to my thread cutting table - cut the helicoil seat - installed the 3/8-24 helicoil - and not it is read to go back together - I'm pretty sure the original threads are tapered - but the helicoil works fine and with that lock ring - the pin isn;t gonna fall out - I'm safe - anyway - here are the pics - probably 2 hours including the TIG setup and weld time - what a PIA - anyone on here every use a standard nitrile O-ring to seal the caliper halves? the original seals look tall and flat