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Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Mystery Fastener

Does anyone know what this is?

It was found in the street in front of my workplace. There's a bit of a back story to it that may provide a clue.

A Toronto Hydro crew had been installing a new wooden transformer pole nearby recently, to replace an elderly one that had acquired an ominous lean, so it may have something to do with hydro pole installations.

The 'pin' portion of it had evidently been cut with a bolt cutter. The pin is 9mm in diameter.

The hexagonal piece is 32 mm long overall; 17mm A/F.
It's not a threaded fastener. The pin's stub remaining in the hexagonal piece was free-turning -- there was no hint of it being threaded in. My guess was that the pin's end had a snap-ring on it that was held in a groove inside the hexagonal piece's bore.

My guess turned out to be correct.

I bored into the flat end of the hex, and I was able to drive the pin's stub out in its insertion direction with a punch and a hammer. Here's what I ended up with.

So what we have here is a very strong fastening/locking pin of some sort, that can only be undone by cutting it. It exhibits no evidence of ever having fastened anything under any sort of load. It appears to be a 'lock' with no 'key' short of a bolt cutter.

It has the numbers "42084" stamped on one flat of the hex. I've googled it every which way I could think of, and come up with nothing.

Any ideas, anyone?


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