Replacing stripped S3 drive bay screws

[chrispitude]

Hi folks,

Three of the four screws holding the drive cradle to the Series 3 chassis are completely stripped out. As a result, the drive sets up a metal-on-metal vibration/hum which seems to come and go of its own accord.

They are stripped due to a combination of poor design and my own fat fingers. I know the threads are not robust because I got one of the first Series 3 units sold and performed a drive upgrade, one of the screws was already stripped so bad it would not back out when turned counter-clockwise!

The other two stripped screws were caused by me using one of those "flip-out" Torx pocket drivers. This made it very hard to drive the screws in straight, and I probably cross-threaded them at least once. I have since bought a proper set of magnetized Torx screwdrivers.

Is there a slightly upsized screw which will thread into these stripped holes and make everything right again? If someone here has fixed this somehow, that would be great. If no one has and I figure something out, I'll be sure to post back.

- Chris

[dswallow]

I faced this issue with the Sony SAT-T60 unit... I simply used some regular PC case screws to replace the original screws and things worked fine. Things change of course, and perhaps they've been using more common sized screws in the Series 3's, but have you tried a PC screw to see if it's larger or not?

[ciper]

Why not pay a visit to home depot and get a small nut/bolt combo? put the bolt through the bottom of the case and the nut on top of the drive cage "feet" then use a needle nose to hold it still and tighten from the bottom? Get the nut in a size slightly smaller than the hole and it will be an easy fix. It will probably only cost you 2$.

[rbtravis]

use 6/32 by 3/8 machine screws for hard drives. and 3 by 2 metrics for mounting brackets.

[mr.unnatural]

The design is fine. You're just overtightening or cross-threading the screws, resulting in stripped threads. I've worked on hundreds of Tivos over the years and never stripped the threads on any of them. The S3 screw locations are a little more difficult to get to but if you have a magnetic screwdriver with a Torx bit they're simple to install.

Since the threads are already stripped, try using some self-tapping sheet metal screws that are just slightly larger than the original screws. Just don't overtighten them or you'll be right back where you started. Check your local Ace hardware store if you have one in your area. They carry the best selection of screws anywhere.