Drive shaft bolts

[Mischa]

its not a allen key head and not a spline head. its a triple square (+other ones pete said) head bit. thats why yours didnt fit you must have had the spline in 8mm which is different. go for a tripple square . there sometimes hard to find in shops but once you have it you can use it again many times over. thats the good thing with buying tools. plus always try to use the right tool for the job. and that never includes a shifter lol
cheers brenton

i was under the impression a spline is a triple square??

[Corderoy]

its not a allen key head and not a spline head. its a triple square (+other ones pete said) head bit. thats why yours didnt fit you must have had the spline in 8mm which is different.

Thanks for that, Brenton.

That makes it a clearer for the struggling old brain.

I just measured the XZN '12' I got from Snap On and it is actually 11mm across the splines.

If that convention holds true the XZN '8' that I had (and should have again this arvo) must be 7mm across the splines which is what I measured the internal head spline to be.

That being the case it will fit.

Call me presumptuous but I have always thought that M8 meant "Metric 8mm".

As the haze of confusion clears I'm getting a lot more comfortable with the whole thing now

edit: Just phoned the Snap On guy and got him to measure the XZN '8" and it is indeed 7mm across the splines. Sorry for the storm in a teacup guys but I've certainly learned something from it.

edit2: As a by the by, I measured the XZN '6' and it is in fact "6mm", lol.

[Peter Jones]

I suspect you're not measuring them correctly.

My recollection is that an M8 is 8mm between opposite corners of any of the three squares. If you're using verniers to measure, rotate the tool to make sure you're reading at the widest point. Same logic applies to the other sizes.

Bear in mind that the tool is most likely slightly tapered too, you might need to take the measurement further up the shaft.

Tri-square and xzn are the same thing.

Spline, allen, double hex, torx, polydrive, bristol are all very different things although they might look similar.

I have a set of bristol bits but I've never found a use for them. Anybody actually seen these in the wild? I think these are also called RIBE bits.

I'll measure mine up tonight, I'm kind of curious now.

Pete

[gtimk5]

Ok, I will leave it up to you fellas to figure out the size.........

[Mischa]

apologies for saying that splines and triple squares are the same. wikipedia has schooled me!

[Corderoy]

I suspect you're not measuring them correctly.

Fair point, Peter

Across the points and 2/3 up the spline of the '12' I make it 11.5mm - which is reasonable allowing a clearance in a 12mm socket.

Same distance up the '8' I make it to be 7.1mm or maybe 7.2mm

I'll measure mine up tonight, I'm kind of curious now.

Always happy to hand out homework