| Author | Message | ||
     Sarodude |
Yowza - maybe you already figured out what I'm gonna say here... I was lurking within the Blast rocker box Friday Night. I took everything and cleaned it up good - paying close attention to the cleanliness and surface finish of the gasket surfaces. I'd also tried to clean off the 4 main rocker box bolts - with WD-40. Well, ya see, I guess I didn't wipe one of the bolts down too well - so it had some WD-40 left on it (as evidenced by an oily blob left around the bolt hole in the metal gasket). The other 3 bolts took the specified torque predictably. This last one made my heart sink. It wasn't even CLOSE to spec when it pulled. Bought some wanna-be Heli-Coil type inserts for the 5/16" 18 (?) thread. The kit called for a 21/64" hole before tapping the hole. Having a limited work area plus a lack of a spare head gasket coupled with a rider who didn't want to be without bike on Saturday (which meant leaving the head on the bike) - I opted for some strange hand drilling. I took the 1/2" chuck off my 3 in 1 piece of crap Smithy. I first ran a 5/16" (20/64" ) bit through the hole by turning the chuck by hand. Slow. Paranoid. Sweaty. I then ran the 21/64 in a similarly slow, paranoid, and sweaty manner. Next cute realization was that there wasn't enough space for a handle to turn the tap - so I wound up using a freakin' wrench. Slow. Paranoid. Sweaty. Next came the actual insert. It seemed a bit reluctant to find the threads I'd cut. Having only installed a handful of thread inserts in the past, I'm never quite sure of these things. In the end it went it. Yes, I was Slow, Paranoid, and Sweaty. Tested the rocker bolt in there (after genius boy cleaned it with acetone) - and it seemed squareish. When I bolted the rocker box to the head, I realized how marvelously square this had come out. Slow, paranoid, sweaty hand drilling works. More importantly, as has been previously stated somewhere else on this board, FOLLOW TORQUE SPECS EXACTLY. Dry fasteners should be DRY. Although I didn't deliberately intend to lube those threads, that was the net affect - and the net disaster. -Saro |
