Name that tool?

[Wrigsby1]

Still on my much abused halford socket set bought in the late 80's. Draper also do a good range of different bits for good basic bike work.
If you intent to keep working on your bikes and cars then get the basic tools early and save yourself alot of f'ing about. Torx inside and out are the new big thing so you won't lose in the long term. Also get some "wobble bars" at some point as they will return their value very quickly rather than rounding bolt heads off...

 

[TheJoker]

.... Or just swap out the Torx stuff for conventional high-tensile hex cap-head...

Seriously, buying another set of these, then a set of those, oh, and of course you need the other 'special' stoff too, frankly there's no real advantage in using Torx fasteners over cap-heads in the applications we can see i.e. chassis and body - just another example of Teutonic elitism IMHO

G

Each to their own, replacing the bolt on the gearlever might not be a problem, but there's tons of Torx bolts on a bike that I don't have the engineering skill to go and replace. Besides, more and more cars and bikes use Torx these days, they're not as rare as they used to be.

My choice is easy; pay £30 for tools, have tools, tools rock.

 

[slimpickings]

Is a STAR bit the same as a TORX

and if so why the f... call it STAR

 

[nig5]

I have a set of torx screwdrivers and sockets (bought because I have a BM!)but didn`t have a socket small enough to fit the gear lever bolt so found a convential socket to fit (just) and removed the torx bolt, the bolt was buggered but that was no problem as I replaced it with a M6 bolt and can now use a 10mm spanner on it.
The trouble is if you have the correct socket it`s difficult to find room to undo the bolt you really need a torx spanner and I wasn`t buying one just to undo one bolt!

 

[TheJoker]

Torx is a registered trade mark, Star isn't. "Velcro"(tm) vs. "Hook & Loop".

 

[ILMV]

It's not called a star because it isn't a star. A star polygon can have more or less points than 6 (by points I mean the end of each spur of a star), also all of the lines of a star are straight, which I know is not true for a Torx bit.

Do your homework » http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_polygon