Off Topic - tools

[mdarr00 at comcast.net]

Jim,

If you look closer at the bolt holding your license plate on, you will most likely find that it is a torx bolt.  Many people mistake torx bolts for allen bolts.  They appear to be very similar.  The difference being that the torx has a bit of a star shape to it.  The reason for the tamper resistant torx is to keep the average thief from being able to remove the bolt.  Tamper resistant bolts are commonly used by the car manufacturers in areas like the ignition switch to make it harder to hot wire the vehicle.  This is most likely why someone used one on your plate.  Torx drivers come in different sizes i.e. T10, T15 and so on.  When you buy the tool you need you need to make sure it is a tamper torx driver, which will have a hole in the end to accept the pin in the bottom of the bolt recess.  You could go to the local auto repair shop and talk with one of the technicians, to see if he would take the plate off for you, then you could just install the new one with conventional bolts.  You really don't have anyway to find out what size you have, so you would be stuck buying a complete set, which is expensive when buying the tamper resistant sets.  I paid $300.00 for a set of 9 from Snap-On.  Now I know you could get a set cheaper somewhere else, but it will still be expensive.

Mike Darr
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jim_Woodward at beaerospace.com 
  To: discussion at nsrca.org 
  Sent: Friday, July 09, 2004 8:02 AM
  Subject: Off Topic - tools



  Hi All, 

  After moving to FL and registering my cars, I realized that someone had installed a license plate with what appeared to be allen head bolts.  Upon closer inspection, the actual bolt has a hex-like shape, with a STUD in the center.  Thus, if I were to use an allen wrench, it would have to be hollow to allow to actually work.  I looked up some tools on the McMaster Carr website and a tool on catalog page 2662, called the, "Tamper-Resistent Torx."  Not being familiar with this type of tool/fastener, I was hoping someone could shed some light on the subject before I ordered it (for instance, is there an Allen style tamper resistant fastener, or only the "torx" style head?). 

  Thanks, 
  Jim W. 


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