Mechanical Malarkey

It was supposed to be a simple job, just a factory trailer hitch installation on a Honda Odyssey. The only problem was it wasn’t a brand new Odyssey, it was a used one from 2014. The hitch attaches with six bolts in pre-threaded holes in the rear of the van, but because this was a 3 year old van, the holes were just rust and I couldn’t get the bolts to start in them.

Rusted threads shouldn’t be a problem, just run a tap in there, or even better, a thread chaser. I borrowed another tech’s thread chaser set and found the right size, but I couldn’t get it to start in the holes either. The next thing to try is a tap, so I go looking for the right size. I check my tap set as well as a few other sets different technicians had in the shop, but nobody had a 12×1.25 tap, only 12×1.5 and 12×1.75. My only choice was to wait for the Matco truck to come by later that afternoon and hope he had one with him. He did, and I bought it on the spot and was able to get back to work on the trailer hitch installation after standing around for two or three hours.

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-Dan