Ah, the much misunderstood and generously hated Phillips screw! In the sixties and seventies, everything from Japan was held together by the dreaded 6mm Phillips screw. Ideal for rapid
production, because it self-centers on the driver bit, a tight Phillips screw can seldom be removed undamaged using a mere screwdriver. With tightly held breath and a reddening face, you insert
the tip of your No. 3 Phillips driver into the screw's head, push inward hard with both hands, and twist.
Inexorably, the applied torque acts as a jack, lifting the bit out of the recess. Being a Phillips novice you don't notice this. Being young, strong, and determined, your muscle turns the
tool. The screw, however, does not turn. The bit has slipped. Being hard, it survives, but the recess in the mild-steel screw has been gouged into a useless crater. You have lost this round.
What'll the next step be? The cut-a-new-slot-with-the-stubby-hacksaw routine? Bang it loose with hammer and chisel? Or try to drill its head off with a quarter-inch drill?
The hammer-driver makes all that unnecessary. One end fits into the screw, and you whack the other end with a hammer. The impact not only exerts great torque through the tool's internal ramps, it
also holds the bit firmly in the screw's recess by inertia. Not only does the hammer-driver work, it is also a tool with a constant price -- $13.95 or less for the last 25 years. To have thus
ignored inflation for so long the tool's manufacturers must either have made incredible advances in factory productivity or be using forced labor. With the hammer-driver you feel great. It makes
you the master of these horrid screws. You strut, you preen. You've come through initiation, you've found enlightenment, and now you can tighten them just as maniacally tight as they do at the
factory.
But even this moment can't last. The sheer thrill of exerting domination over Phillips screws has made you pull off your sidecases at any suspicion of trouble. It's so easy! But now those screws
have been in and out quite a few times. As you bang on the hammer-driver this time, the tired aluminum threads yield and the screw becomes mysteriously loose.
Puzzled, you pluck at it, and it comes too easily out of its hole. Wrapped around it is your souvenir -- a perfect helix of sheared-off former threads.
Older machines bear mute witness that many a shade-tree mechanic, faced with this proof of his novice status, simply pours screwglue into the stripped hole and, furtively looking around, pushes
the screw in and tries to think no more about the incident.
On older bikes, two or three special 5mm screws (gold color, captive split-washer) were used to mount the ignition stator. These screws were double jeopardy. Each had both plain slot and Phillips
recess. Two delightful ways to screw up. Maybe the original intent was to democratize ignition maladjustment -- anyone, no matter which tool he happened to own, could meddle. If those ignition
screws were factory-tightened or glued (as they certainly should have been), use of either plain or Phillips driver would mutilate all their slots and recesses.
Glue is a subject in itself: Anaerobic resins remain liquid in their bottle, but solidify when used to secure threaded fasteners against loosening. As Kleenex has come to mean all facial tissue,
so Loctite has become the generic term for glue on a screw. The stuff comes with excellent instructions, but who takes time to read them? Gimme the strongest stuff you got. If you thought
Japanese production-line screw-runners got those Phillips screws secure, Loctite raises tight to a dimension beyond.
The screw won't come out. After your careful work, its head resembles a handlebar end after a crash.
If you drill the head off, how will you get the glued-in shank out? Heat the whole engine to 250° Celsius?
I found a way to make it worse. Having spent too much of my life centering broken, Loctite-welded Phillips screw shanks under the spindle of the milling machine so that I could drill them out, I
decided to substitute super-strength Allen-head bolts for Phillips screws.
Allen cap screws are wonderful. There is always enough torque capacity in their full-dimension, 1960-standard socket heads to get the fasteners out, regardless of what ingenious stupidity has
been used to install them. My downfall was the Allen flathead. All my Kawasakis employed Phillips flatheads to secure certain shifter parts. I carefully replaced them with Allen flatheads, but I
should have paid better attention; the conical head of a flathead is ideally shaped for a strong, full-sized Phillips recess, but has room for only a tiny, undersized Allen socket. With sappy
confidence, I torqued-up those technical-looking black Parkerized Allen flatheads, using a drop of sweet-smelling Loctite.
At the next maintenance, I inserted a key and twisted clockwise. No movement. I applied more torque. The handle moved, but not the screw. Well, I had to get those screws out of there. More
pressure. Gracefully, the shaft of the tool assumed a permanent spiral shape, like Christmas candy. I tossed the now-useless key aside and fetched a genuine hard-guy key from the drawer. Now
we'll see. This time the key took everything I could give it. The force climbed, and with a thumb-numbing impact, the key slipped in the socket. Because both key and socket were of good material,
they shared the damage equally: Both were now round.
Instead of a hole filled with easily drilled mild-steel screw, I faced a tightly glued plug of hardened alloy steel. I wonder how many times I'll have to resharpen the drill before I get it all
out? And if the drill breaks? Drills are even harder than the best Allen bolts -- and therefore more brittle. Well, there's always electro-discharge machining.
Next time, I used good old readily removable (with the right tool) Phillips flatheads instead of the classy "high-tech" Allen flatheads with their anemic sockets. And Allen capscrews everywhere
else. Happiness.
