I have a stripped rocker cover bolt, rear cylinder, front bolt. The others manage to work themselves loose too and leaks oil all over. Does the engine have to come out to get the rocker covers off? I would like to either get a new bottom rocker cover or heli-coil the stripped thread in there, but it looks to me the frame is in the way to get rocker cover off. 97 FXDWG.


Joe

 

I had the exact same issue, i tried a bolt just a few threads longer and it worked, i may have gotten lucky but its worth a try, you can get them off as it sits but its a pain in the butt..but try the longer bolt first It does work sometimes

 

Leave the engine in the frame. Remove the fuel tank and begin pulling parts. It's a tight squeeze but you can pull covers, heads Barrels, pistons etc with the case bolted in!

 

Yeah, it is a VERY tight squeeze on the rear. When I did mine I found that I could not get the center section on if I had the bottom section already bolted down because the bolt heads caused interference. So I had to put the bottom and center sections in place then shift the center section around so that I could access the bolts on the bottom section. This made it nearly impossible to use a torque wrench on the bottom section bolts. But I did manage to get it all back together with no leaks... so far.

 

By a stripped out thread do you mean that the bolt won't hold in the thread? If so you're going to need to pull the head and install a Heli-Coil insert. Or replace the head.

If it's only cross threaded :

Pull the tank, and remove the rear rocker boxes.

Check the three pieces on a plate of glass or other known FLAT surface for warpage. It's not going to do any good to put a warped section back on (ya gotta trust me on this one).

Take a 'thread cleaning' tap and see if you can 'clean up' the threads in the buggered up hole. Test using one of the rocker box bolts. If this can't be done, you'll probably need to remove the head and get a heli-coil insert installed. Or upgrade to some new heads. Offhand, I can't recall if there would be enough room to drill the head with it still on the engine in the frame.

I have zero experience with the Loctite thread maker liquids, but perhaps it might be worth a try. However according to this: http://www.midwayusa.com/midwayusa/S...ed_threads.pdf

The max amount of torque on the repaired thread would be 23 in/lb (less than 2 ft/lbs).

 

Thanks guys, of course I'll try the longer bolt first. Hope it works. Otherwise I have myself a winter project. At least now I know I can get away with out removing engine.

Joe

 

I changed a couple of the bolts and used red lock tite and now I can't get bike started. Rear sparkplug is wet but front is dry, All I did was change rocker bolts, what could have happened? I checked all wires and nothing came loose.


Joe

 

Grab a booster cable. Hook one end to Negative of your battery & the other end to a bolt on your rear cylinder to confirm you have a good ground.
Check the wire that goes to your VOES located at the top of the engine between both cylinders.
Pull your plug wire & check it for damage or looseness at the coil.
Confirm that you have spark on the rear cylinder & swap your front & rear plug around.
One of those might get ya going.
Hatch.

 

Rear is tight but normally doeable and worst case is you may need to take bolts out of front mount to drop motor forward just enough. I found best thing is cut the end shorter on allen key to get in there.

 

Took me all day, but I got it started. Don't use longer bolts!!!!!! At least on the primary side. I put a .250" longer bolt in and it must have been hitting the valve top preventing it from functioning. when I removed the bolt, you can see the bottom 1/8 was chewed up. Put in a shorter one and it started. Ultimately I have to get a new lower rocker cover, the threads are stripped.

Joe