I started being a mechanic when got my first bicycle but my career as a mechanic started at Castle Park Hawaii working on Go-Karts and Bumper-Boats. Along the way I worked on my motorcycles. Then I got my first motorcycle shop job and soon after, started racing, in ’82.
Growing up in Hawaii, I had to deal with a lot of stuck bolts. There are two fork banjo bolts in this photo. The one at the bottom is intact. It holds the cartridge rod to the bottom of the fork. Both of these were over tightened.
On a side note, torque is not set by how worried you are about how important a bolt is, it’s determined by the strength of the bolt.
Anyway, the top bolt was also rounded out where the Allen wrench goes. Because the bolt is up inside the foot of the fork there is no other way to get a hold of the bolt. My solution was to drill down the center of the bolt, with a hand drill, with larger and larger bits till I removed the head of the bolt from the shaft.
If I can get at the head of the damaged/stuck bolt I have a bunch of tools made to grip the head or the shaft. Another good trick for screw heads is to use a chisel and a small hammer to drive the bolt around.
So far, much like how you never see a cat skeleton up in a tree, I have always found a way to remove stuck bolts.
Righty-tighty. Lefty-loosey.