smontanaro 

I need to remove one of my early Dura-Ace brake levers to change the stem. It appears to be an 8mm nut, but my 8mm and 5/16" sockets won't fit in the space between the sides of the brake lever body. Do I need to track down a thin wall socket?

oddjob2

How about a nutdriver?

smontanaro 

That's what I've tried so far, a 1/4" nut driver handle with either an admittedly large crappy 8mm socket or a more typical sized 5/16" socket. I have been a bit lazy in regards to 8mm wrenches. I've lost whatever my original 8mm socket was, and have broken the 8mm open-end side of a Craftsman 8mm/9mm open/closed wrench. 5/16" is so close to 8mm that the missing bits have never been a problem until now.

I spent a bunch of time hunting around the Sears site, but their search facility is so lame, I couldn't find what I was looking for. I'm sure I can find some cheap junk on Amazon, but there's a Sears in my area, so I could at least inspect whatever I selected before buying it.

autonoz

know anyone with a lathe who can turn one down to fit in the space?
I have done this in the past.

Oldpeddaller

8mm tube spanner will fit, need a long one with a Tommy Bar. Draper do a set with three different diameter tommy bars very cheaply, galvanised finish but they are slim and very useful. Too late to go out and photograph mine.

3alarmer 

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...believe it or not, they actually made a special wrench for this. I have one around here somewhere. #curseyouShimano

PatTheSlat 

If you have one of those X-in-1 screwdrivers with the removable/reversable bits, usually that'll fit right over those nuts if you take the bit out.

smontanaro 

That doesn't surprise me, not one little bit. There is some bike application (front derailleur clamp or derailleur cable fixing nut, I think) where Campy and SunTour of the era used either an 8mm or 10mm nut, while Shimano decided to use 9mm. Just to be different, I suppose. This was back in the day where they weren't King on the Hill, either.

Tube spanner? I found it on eBay in Australia. Replacing "spanner" with "wrench" on either eBay or Google only shows me flare nut wrenches. We must call them something other than "tube wrenches".

smontanaro 

Oooh... Thanks for the tip...

I would really like to get this bike set up for a ride on the 30th. I will grab another one from the stable if necessary...

dddd

This is a job for a bench grinder.

Just put the socket on a 6" extension, and spin it against the grinding wheel. It will help to re-position the socket 90-degrees at even intervals during grinding, to help the ground surface remain concentric to the bore of the socket (for uniform wall thickness).

I've made many such sockets, for Stronglight 16mm and even a 5/16" for a production environment in industry (for assembling liquid chromatographs).

Here's my Stronglight version, and also a thick-socketed T-handle wrench that I similarly modified:

3alarmer 

...the T handled wrench at the top has (IIRC) an 8 mm socket and a 6 mm handle. That's the one I was talking about. Probably unobtanium these days, but useful, if you find one.

smontanaro 

Thanks for the grinder and lathe suggestions. I do have a bench grinder, though since our household is in a state of flux, it wasn't attached to anything. I duct taped it to a saw horse and thinned out my cheapo 8mm socket until it could reach the nut:



All better now.

The Golden Boy 

Viva la Duck Tape!