Your dealer must be pathetic. Ive borrowed specialty tools a few times with a deposit equal in value. I always asked the tech what he likes to drink and left a large bottle as thanks. Sounds like you are doing a good job so far.

 

No replies about the Time-sert kit, so I got tired of waiting, bit the bullet and ordered the kit. Although I did some digging around and rather than buying the "Harley-specific" kit with 5 1" inserts for $108.99, I bought the same kit with 5 .520" length inserts for $64.99 and 6 1" length inserts for $12. I figure that way I will have enough inserts to repair the two rear studs and all 4 fronts(which I don't think are bad at all, but don't know for sure). Plus once I am done, if money is an issue, I can probably sell the remainder of the kit for most of my money back, or better yet, trade it to the indy for parts or labor. The kit should be here in 2-5 working days.

I also borrowed a nice right-angle drill from my uncle, so clearance should not be a problem. I plan to cover the crank opening with duct tape and have someone hold a shop-vac drawing the shavings away from the crank opening while I'm drilling and tapping, in addition to using grease to help catch the shavings.

 

Glad to here your moving forward. I did see these kits on ebay so I'm sure you can unload there when finished or even through our sell forum here.

 

I do remember having the studs pull out of my 1985. It was years ago. I see now there is a Kit that has the specific parts and tools needed to repair this problem. I just used Helicoils trimmed down to fix this.

Good luck and you will enjoy the fact You did this with every mile you ride after the fix.

 

RidemyEVO: Did you buy the specific "Harley" Time-sert kit? If so, did it come with any instruction sheet or tips page specific to the Harley application? If so, could you scan it and send it to me? I would really appreciate it. The only difference between the kit I ordered and the HD specific one, aside from the price, was the length of the inserts and the HD kit is supposed to include some high-temp loctite...

 

Folow on thought, be sure to clean everything well and look for cracks in the cases. Sometimes the reason this happens is that there is a crack running to the stud hole.

 

No instructions came with my kit but the site video is very helpful.

 

Thanks. I was just making sure I wasn't missing anything by going with the less-expensive version of the kit. Now I just have to wait for the kit to show up so I can put her back together!

MIA: I checked over the cylinder and head carefully and see no sign of any cracking. I beleive pretty much the entire problem was caused by the combination of a few things: I wasn't letting her warm up long enough, the previous rebuilder put the cylinder studs in upside down and consequently stripped 2 of the holes and I also didn't identify the problem soon enough to try to avoid the current situation, not that I really could have done anything else but tear it down like I have...

*edit* I misunderstood, I will carefully check the cases for cracks as well. Makes sense, but since the previous rebuilder put the studs in upside down, I beleive he over-tightened them too deeply into the case, which promoted them stripping out since the shoulder or ridge wasn't against anything to stop the stud from going too far...

 

Actually I doubt he stripped the holes mine to exact same thing the aluminum threads were stuck on the studs.

 

Actually Harley made studs that were supposed to be installed with the flange up. I could never understand this, after a year or two they changed it, and decided to install them with the flange down against the case.