I've added a quick review of the replacement spring bars I purchased, hopefully this will be helpful to any other newbies out there:
A couple of week’s back I was looking for some replacement spring bars for my PAM 123. One of the screw bar threads was stripped. I looked down one day at work and nearly had heart failure as one of the screw bars was sticking out by about 10Mil. Had I been wandering around it would only have been a short while until the strap came off, and my PAM would have hit the floor.
I can only assume the previous owner perhaps over tightened the screw bar and stripped the thread. The screw bar had been held in place with loads of Loctite (which required cleaning out)
I did a bit of research on the site and it looked like replacement spring bars would be my only way forward. I did not want to have to wait for spring bars to come over from either the US or Australia, or pay the postage so looked for a UK seller. I was pointed to a UK based seller on Ebay so I took the plunge:
This was the seller:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/22-24-26-...sories_SpareParts_SM&var=&hash=item84d92a7662
Note – I have no affiliation to this provider.
The spring bars were £6.89 for two, with free economy delivery. This compares to around $9.50 for a set which I had seen advertised in the US for the same thing. Note the set does not come with tubes.
When the set arrived they were nicely packaged in a small plastic sealed bag, in an envelope and was delivered via Recorded Delivery.
One side of the spring bars has a look-a-like screw head and the other is just plain bar, with no thread. They have a good solid feel to them. The look-a-like screw head is a slightly smaller diameter than the original screw bar coming in at 1.7mil with the original screw bar coming in at 1.8mil (measured with a Vernier). The plain bar side of the replacement spring bar comes in at 1.3Mil whilst the original screw bar thread was 1.4Mil (again, measured with a Vernier). So the replacement spring bar has a 0.1Mil smaller diameter than the original screw bar.
The area of concern I would have is that there is a significant size difference between the original screw bar overall diameter (which fits into the strap). The overall screw bar diameter as its largest is 1.8Mil whilst the replacement spring bar is 2.5Mil – this is a significant difference as it means it may not fit in to some straps. With a bit of hefty pushing and contorting I managed to get the spring bars into my strap. (Incidentally my strap does not have any tubes).
This is definitely an area to keep an eye on if you’re considering a replacement.
Secondly the overall length of the replacement spring bar is 29.5Mil, whereas the original screw bar was 30.8Mil. This is also a fairly significant size difference.
From a “strength perspective, the spring bars are solid. There are no issues with the construction.
So what did I learn by the end of the exercise:
1. Before you order replacement spring bars, check that they will fit in to your strap.
2. Check on the length of the replacement spring bars to ensure that they sit at the same depth of your current screw bars (unless you’re happy with something shallower).
I’ve had the replacements in for around 3 weeks and I have not experienced any issues. I hope this was useful to any other guys (who are new like me) who are considering buying some replacement spring bars for their PAM.
