Stripped Brake Caliper Slide Bolts/Pins! Now what? Wire, thread repair, oversize pin, drill and tap, braze with bronze then tap or replace bracket or spindle.

It happened to me. Apparently, it is not uncommon here is the rust belt. Salt, water and the heat from braking makes it so that steel rusts, really well.

Here are some different solutions to repairing a stripped caliper bolt hole.

1. Thread repair kit. (YouTube video here) The hole must be drilled and tapped to a larger size hole. A piece of wire in the shape of the target size thread is then inserted in the hole. The caliper pin can now be replaced with the correct thread. ($30-$50) Then again, just wrapping a wire around the thread of the original caliper pin may be strong enough. Go AvE!   Manly-Man Skill: Repair Stripped Threads with Nothing but a Bolt, a Wire and a Flat Bastard.

2. An oversized caliper pin. The slide pin is the same size, however the thread is slightly larger. You can drive in the thread and a new hole will be tapped. ($15-$35)

3. A larger bolt. Drill, tap, insert a regular bolt. Ugly, but it works. The head of the bolt may compress against the rubber boot of the original caliper pin. ($3 - add $8 if you don't have a drill bit and tap).

4. Clean, apply flux, and braze with bronze. The surface must be very clean to ensure that the bronze is making alloy bond on the surface of the steel, not just cooled pearls of bronze. Drill to the required hole size and then tap. Bronze is easier to cut than steel, so your tap should not suffer damage from the hard steel of the bracket or spindle. (Depends on your tool inventory - a can of MAPP gas or brazing fuel is $10, the drill bit and tap about $8.)
It may also be possible to fill the hole with weld filler material such as 6011 or 6013 -  - however, machining iron that has been welded may be very very difficult as the carbon deposits harden the steel weld. There are equally some metallurgical considerations if you are going to use a wire fed welder ( MIG or FCAW ).

5. Buy a new spindle/bracket. The price depends on the availability of the parts from a scrap yard or what you can find online.

Links

http://www.repairengineering.com/thread-repair.html

http://www.locknstitch.com/pdf/gmrc_white_paper.pdf