[cantorg]

In the process of breaking it down for a some trigger work, I was removing grips and one of the grip screw housings came off the frame still attached to the grip screw. See pic. What to do next?

I tried gently separating the screw and the housing by turning the screw with a driver and holding the housing with my fingers, but no joy. (I am leery of clamping anything on the housing as it seems to be threaded.) I suppose I could just finish the trigger work and screw the whole unit back in just the way it came out? Or maybe put a little loctite (blue? red?) on the frame itself and then screw the unit back in, hoping the screw turns (not the housing) next time?

And if I did get them separated, then what? How do I turn the housing back into the frame? And should I use some loctite (red?, blue?)?

Any thoughts appreciated! I am a bit of a newbie to 1911s - this is my first one. (More pics and some of its history here ). I adore it - it is my best shooting pistol, except for the knock in the forehead every 10th round or so from the ejected casing, but I am more than willing to live with that as it has never ever had a misfire/misfeed of any kind and it hits whatever I point at. (Yes, I have tried tuning the extractor in various way - no luck; maybe some day I'll get adventurous with a file and work on the ejector and maybe the extractor as some smart folk here have suggested.)

 

[cantorg]

You guys rock - so grateful for the abundance of collective wisdom here (as usual). To synthesize & summarize a bit (for posterity) in no particular order:

• the patient, middle of the road (and not expensive) way seems to be to replace the bushing, say with Brownells bushings;
• a more thoroughgoing move in this direction is to use this as an opportunity to install four Challis hex bushings (very cool); a bit more expensive but an ideal solution/improvement;
• also for the preservationist among us the Esty bushing grip tool is a great way to (with certainty) to save the original bushing;
• then there were the tricks for trying to hold the bushing and and screw it out (etsy style but cheap and fast): cotton cloth & or paint stick around it in a vise;
• finally, the Loctite solution, the consensus here was blue Loctite, but Steve from the video at Brownell's seemed to use red Loctite.
  • a nice tip here was to reverse screw a turn or two initially to help avoid a cross thread.

I think I'll give the blue loctite a try - not playing favorites, I bet I'll use each of those solutions eventually. As I mentioned, the history of my relationship with this lovely 1911 has been a rich one, despite (or maybe because of ) having invested well under $500 on it. I am trying to keep it that way, so if I ever lose it to an evidence box, it will only hurt my heart, not my wallet. Don't want to be shy (gun-shy ) of calling on it if I need to... thanks again.

 

[cantorg]

Problem resolved: I carefully screwed the bushing back in after applying some blue Loctite. All is now well. Thanks all for a great discussion with great wisdom and history as usual.