| Author | Message | ||
     Yeags30 |
Well i lost one of the nuts that hold the header on the bike....went to put a nut on it to fix it and while tightening ...snap!!! So i broke the stud. If i can get the other nut off and take the clamp down it looks like i can get to the stud to remove it...MY question is how do i get the good one loose to remove the clamp??? I tried to take it out and it feels really tight....Should i soak it with some penetrating lube??? Or should i just let the bike sit overnight so it cools down then try to remove it... I don't want to break another one....i can still ride it now but the exhaust leak noise drives me nuts..Any suggestions guys???I know a lot of you have had your header off before...Any input would be appreciated...you guys rock Bob | ||
| Buellrcr |
get the jims tool for drilling them out. its the best way to fix it on the bike. | ||
| Oldog |
your first idea is about the best, put some penetrating oil on the head at the stud & nuts, let it work and remove the stuff in a logical manner. why are you working on a hot motor? | ||
| Diablobrian |
never try to tighten 1 nut that has fallen off. Always loosen the other nut and then tighten them evenly. I know, day late and dollar short, but maybe next time... | ||
| Yeags30 |
i didn't try to tighten one....it fell off completly and my dealer didn't have one so i grabbed one i thought would fit.......motor wasn't hot when i tried it but it was the wrong size or thread count....snapped off the threads even with the header clamp.....once i get the clamp off i should be able to pull the stud off....drilling is the alst resort...i have a fair amount of stud left to get it out...i didn't break it off inside the head | ||
| Diablobrian |
At least you had some luck there. If it had to break... Sorry to make assumptions, from the description I thought I might have seen part of the problem. Maybe it'll help someone else down the road. | ||
| Jlnance |
Yeags30 - I've just been through this myself, and I was going to write it up. Looks like you've given me an excuse for a trial run. First piece of advice is do whatever oldog tells you.  He knows his stuff. You can follow my adventures with this here if you like, and Oldog's advice to me is in there. OK, here is the procedure: - Get a drill and a hammer. - Make sure you have a punch. I didn't so I bought a prick punch from northern tools. It's about $2.50 - You will need new high quality drill bits made for drilling metal. Do not get a cheapy pack of plain bits. I used Cobalt steel bits. Titanium Nitride coated bits would probably be another good choice. Get ever other size bit up to 1/4 inch. The bits are about $2 each. - Get some thread cutting oil Here is a picture of my collection which I purchased from Norther Tools.   First, put a rag into the exhaust port to keep metal filings from falling into your engine. Next, take the punch and place it in the center of the snapped of stud. Tap it with a hammer so that it makes a dent in the stud. The punch is going to bounce when you tap it, so don't slam it too hard. Look at the dent you made. If it's off center, try again. Put the smallest bit into your drill. When I drilled my stud out, the fins on the head were in the way, so I had to just have the very end of the bit in the chock in order for the bit to be long enough to reach. This isn't ideal, but it worked. Put the bit into the dent you made with the punch. Take some time to line up the drill so that you are drilling straight into the bolt. You don't want to drill at an angle. You should not have to apply much pressure to drill if you have good bits. I was shocked at how easy it was. It will also go very fast. You don't need to go very deep with the first bit. 1/8 of an inch is fine. In fact do not go deep with the small bits, even if you can, because if you break one off deep inside the bolt, you are screwed.  The procedure is to work up through the drill sizes, each time going a little deeper. The prior hole serves as a guide, and if you started the first hole straight, all the other holes you drill will be straight. This is not a difficult task. You will spend more time changing the bits than drilling the holes. I was very pleased with how easy this was. For the largest 2 drills, I put some of the thread cutting oil on the bits. Before you start this, go ahead and buy yourself a replacement header stud. That way you can see how long the section inside the head is. You do not want to drill past the end of the bolt! OK, up to this point I did all the work myself. After this sportymark came over and did the following. So I don't have as detailed knowlege here. You need a helicoil kit. We got it from Advance Auto. It's a 1/4 inch coil, but I can't remember the thread pitch. I think I know, but I'd rather post nothing than guess wrong. Someone else will fill us in I'm sure. The kit is $30. It comes with everything you need EXCEPT a drill bit. The size of the necessary bit is listed on the kit. It was not a standard size bit, so we got the next smallest size that Advance sold. I oiled the bit and drilled out the hole to the helicoil size. Unlike all the prior drillings, the helicoil bit is larger than the original bolt. This means you're drilling out the aluminum head as well as the remainder of the steel header stud. I was worried about this, but it went fine. Again, don't drill out the back of the stud. When you are done, clean the filings from the drill hole. We used a q-tip. The helicoil kit comes with a tap. You need to use it to tap threads into the hole you drilled. Mark did this for me, so I don't know how to describe it. I've tapped things before, but never a header. I don't know if its any different. If you've never tapped, you might want to practice on a piece of scrap aluminum. Put some of the thread cutting oil onto the tap before you start. It will make the tap work better, and it will make the filings stick to the tap. Once you have threads tapped, there is a tool in the helicoil kit you use to screw the helicoil into the hole. Then once the helicoil is in, you break off a tab on the back of the coil, which locks it into place. At this point you have threads:  You can thread the header stud into the helicoil and you're good to go! The only issue I had is that the new header doesn't go in as deeply as the old one. This is because the back of the old one is still in there. That is only a problem if it prevents you from getting the exhaust clamp nuts far enough down the stud to tighten everything up. You can put washers behind the nuts if you have this problem. Hope this helps. | ||
| Aldaytona |
Or.....................remove the other nut, slide down exhaust flange, TIG weld a nut on the broken stud and zip it out. No drilling, tapping, and it's clean and quick. Install new stud into undamaged threads and slide flange over studs tighten nuts and ride. BTW, if you must do the drill-tap thing, use a Wurth time sert instead of a helicoil, you'll be glad you did. | ||
| Diablobrian |
Also if you have to drill the Jim's brand guide tool is very worth while to make sure you drill straight and true. Many of our sponsors can get this tool for you! http://www.tejasthumpcycles.com/tools/Harley%20Tools/Exhaust_Stud_Drill_Plate.jp g | ||
| Reepicheep |
Clearly, the timeserts are superior to the heli-coils, but has anyone actually had first hand experiences with the heli-coils failing? I have used them in a lot of different places in a lot of different materials, and never had a problem with one, even for frequently removed fasteners. Just looking for first hand experiences where the helicoil might be a problem... | ||
| Diablobrian |
I have seen many failures, but i used to work as a machinist and people brought things to us to be repaired after that sort of thing happened. It seems to happen more often when the inserts are in softer metals. I rarely saw failures in iron or steel. Aluminum, and magnesium were far more commonly brought in with failed heli-coils. | ||
| Jessicasdad |
Reep, I used these .. the front spark plug "blew out" of the motor repaired with the Re-coil kit and has been fine since .. even did a leak down and no issues.... http://www.newmantools.com/recoil1.htm one of the main reasons that I went with the Re-Coil product are the MIL and FAA certifications ... | ||
| Johnk3 |
I have the jims tool and i can mail it to you if you like. its close to $80, so you may just want to borrow.... email/pm me if you want it. | ||
| Cmm213 |
Why would he need a coil kit if he can get it out? Just keep increasing bit sizes just until you hit the threads on the head and then clean out the rest of the stud with a pick tool , and use a tap for the original thread size to make a clean thread again. Did you also try to drill a hole and use a easy out bit? My best friend is a machinist so I'm lucky when I have a screw up. | ||
| Reepicheep |
AAAIGGHHH! Don't use the easy out. Thanks for the first hand info on the heli-coil... the next question is... If the easy out fails, can you then put in a normal timesert and keep the same bolt size and thread? I am guessing that a stripped out / trashed heli-coil can then be drilled out to the next larger size, and you can then just put in a timesert. So you could take an evolutionary approach is cases where you can tolerate a failure. Fix with a heli-coil, if that fails, spend the $100 for the timesert install. (Message edited by reepicheep on May 02, 2006) | ||
| Diablobrian |
You could go that way. I would just go with the timesert myself because I wouldn't want to have to hassle with it twice and take the chance of screwing up my head twice. It comes down to the old risk:reward ratio. Is it worth the time and $ saved to risk doing it twice? It's up to the individual. Reepicheep did yours break too? | ||
| Slaughter |
Just as a point - before I installed the roller-forged studs, I broke a few studs and used the Jim's drill guide to drill and tap and installed the Helicoils and forged studs. So far so good. I've now replaced all 4. | ||
| Diablobrian |
Good call Slaughter. I had assumed anyone replacing the studs would use good quality studs in place of the broken one. I'd also change out both studs on the head that had the broken stud. Belt and suspenders kind of thing. Why go through all this twice? | ||
| Yeags30 |
ok heres an update...I was able to get the nut off the other stud so now the clamp is out of the way. I still have some of the stud sticking out of the head. I have just enough to start the nut on the stud with the clamp on...it isn't much but it will tighten.....i don't want to have to take the header off....i'm not in the mood to drop the engine. i don't have a tig welder but i do have a mig.....but i'm afraid i may break the stud again and then i have nothing to work with....all i need is 2 nuts i can fit onto the stud then i can try to back the stud out but turning the inside bolt....guess what i want to know is who has sucessfully removed a stock stud without drilling it??? | ||
| Yeags30 |
 u can see i still have something to work with....i'm just wondering if i will actually get the stud out without drilling or dropping the motor | ||
| Diablobrian |
you might want to try a pair of thinner nuts, or grind a nut down thinner so you can jam nut them together. I haven't done it on a a buell but I've done the same job on other bike motors many times. Funny thing about your friends knowing you work at a machine shop, they want you to fix their bikes......for free.  | ||
| Diablobrian |
You should be able to get a hold of that no problem. You lucked out on which one broke. Pull your voltage regulator first though, it should give you more room and prevent damage to the reg. (Message edited by diablobrian on May 02, 2006) | ||
| Yeags30 |
hey brian u want to come take a nice scenic tour of upstate NY.....o yea while you are here u can help me get this stud out....  | ||
| Diablobrian |
like I haven't heard that one before | ||
| Reepicheep |
My Cyclone broke one after the stock (2000) front exhaust mount chopped up it's ears. The root problem was that front mount, the fruit of it was broken studs. That job made me the man I am today I did it wrong and snapped off the easy out. That was awful. Once the easy out was out, then the job was not that bad (drilling out the old bolt crooked, retapping the whole mess (no heli-coil even) and putting it back. In hindsight I should have used a heli coil, but retapping the new hole (off by half a bolt width by the time I got full depth) worked great for 20k miles (and is still working fine today as far as I know, I traded in the bike). From what I have heard, the jims tool makes things easy. Were that my bike above, I would be tempted to start in on it with a pair of needle nose vice grips and heat. | ||
| Yeags30 |
i guess i need to find some thin nuts that match the threads on the studs....and i have some new studs and nuts on the way thanks to daves...i'm going to wait until the new stuff comes in to start trying to remove it....thanks for the advice guys Bob | ||
| S1eric |
Happen to me once, On my S1W. I used left handed drill bits. Yep left handed drill bits from snap on. Once the drill bit got a good bite, It spun out the old stud. Just remember to run your drill in reverse. But it looks like you got lucky. Soak it down and try double nutting it. Vise grips might even work. Lots of good advise on this board i love it. S1Eric (Message edited by S1Eric on May 02, 2006) | ||
| Jlnance |
Yegas - Advance Auto sells a stud removal tool. It goes on a socket wrench and has some cams that clamp down on the sides of the stud as you turn it. It's $30. I've sucessfully used it to remove 1 1/2 exhaust studs :-) | ||
| Jackbequick |
Yeags30, I think that stud is threaded coarse (5/16-18) on the nut and fine 5/16-24 in the head. If you can, pick up a can of PB Blaster at the auto parts store and start giving that short squirts and let it soak in. If you can get at the broken stud with a mini-torch heating the stud and squirting the PBB as it cools will help wick the PBB down into the thread a little. If you know a good TIG welder and can get the bike to him, having him TIG weld a nut onto the stud remnant would be another option. Jack | ||
| Jlnance |
I see people here have used the Jims tool. You all liked it? I couldn't find anyone with one when I broke my stud, and I was reluctant to pay almost $90 for one w/o knowing if it really worked. In particular, is the drill guide good enough so that you drill straight and in the right place? | ||
| Jerseybuell |
Just can't stay quite about this issue..definitely hit a nerve here fellow Buellers, but with a happy ending...In July of 2004, I found my exhaust port stud broken on my '91 XLH1200. The next several, yes several, weekends were spent listening to newly created profanity spewing from my own mouth as if it was an Olympic event. After much money, sweat and time spent on carbide drill bits, eazy outs (yeah, right)which broke off inside the head, by the way, and a butchered jug I created, I was so pissed with it and other usual issues from a 13 year old motorcycle, I went straight to the dealership like an overweight woman looking to drown her sorrows by buying a new pair of shoes. I took a test ride on an XB12S and bought it on the spot. This bike was made for me. Couldn't be happier..about the exhaust port stud issue, listen to these folks on here. I eventually fixed it myself and kept the XLH (we have made up since) but, will never, ever do it again without the jig if I need to drill.. | ||
| Jlnance |
listening to newly created profanity spewing from my own mouth as if it was an Olympic event. I'm glad I'm not the only one who does that. I had to make up some words last week when I was trying to get a muffler back on my Blast. That wasn't the first time I'd noticed it though. I'm a person who doesn't do roller coasters. I was in Las Vegas once, and they have this tower, set up on top of a 1000 foot building, which they strap you to and blast you up 150 feet into the air. Ah, they have a picture:  I would never ride something like that. Except that I won a free ticket, and I'm way to cheap to pass that up. I should have known better when they shot the first load of tourists up and half the line walked away. But I was not going to loose out on my free ticket! I screamed words I litterally did not know I knew. And then I opened my eyes. I could see half of Nevada. Somewhere in there they snapped my picture. My expression says it all. |
