I recently read an article here about universals breaking. I too have had a couple break. In one case the bolt that goes into the board broke and the other was a button shearing off( cup style). I'm now on europin but after two sails I noticed that the thread that the europin screws onto was bent.
So I pulled it all apart , it seemed the only reason it needed to screw on was to hold the large washer captive. I got to work and made a new pin that incorporated the tendon top cap, machined from solid 316 ss. It's no heavier than the original and without the inherent weak spot where the screwed on pin works the thread. To hold the washer on I simply drilled it out to fit over the new pin and a little dop of sika to hold it in place. I also changed the the lower bolt from M8 with a core diameter of about 6.5mm to 3/8 whitworth with a core diameter of about 7.5mm. It's only 1mm but quite a bit extra in cross sectional area. I would have used a finer thread to get even larger core diameter but thats all the shop was stocking. While I was at it, the unit only had one safety cord so I drilled a few more holes and added another.
Here's a couple of pics, the first one is quality control, and second pic shows the top parts being the originals and the bottom ones being the beefed up parts.
Great job Brad I had a euro pin fail a while back not a very nice feeling at all
lucky I wasnt too far out.
So when can I have one 
