Topic: Never trust a good looking stud.....

[Patrick]

So I had all the parts to put the top end of my K0 750 back together, this time without the oil leak. I'm looking at the studs and... ya know, I can probablyl do better. They look new, but they don't look like the HD studs I've seen online. So I order HD studs from CycleX. While waiting for them to come, tonight I figured I would go ahead pull the old ones. Most came out easy - hell, some of them weren't even under torque. But one, the little one in front on the left, it was torqued, alright. I think the PO must have figured that stud held the whole fricking bike together. I twisted, wrist strength only and it didn't budge. I gave it just a touch more, just a tiny bit of oomph - hand in middle of the ratchet on the double nut - and it budged. Budged right off the bottom part of itself. Snapped.

In the long run I am going to convince myself that this was for the better. That the stud breaking now was more convenient than had it broken on a winding mountain road in Colorado, 50 miles from camp and 1,000 miles from home.

In the short run I am incredibly annoyed.

The stub shows maybe 1 mm above the base gasket surface, so there's nothing to grab. I have left hand drill bits, but I hate to drill it. I won't ever use an extractor again - it's too difficult to remove the broken tips. Anybody have an extraction method that poses the least chance of damage?

I know you can get ticks and leeches to back out if you put a lit cigarette on their back. I'm looking for something like that.

Patrick

[eurban]

I had a flush break and didn't have any left hand bits so I was left with centerpunching and drilling with progressively larger bits till I just kissed the threads on one side.  I was then able to collapse the hollowed out stud on itself and pull it out. If it is sticking up 1 cm you could probably weld something to it (if you have those tools and skills) or you could cut a slot into into and try an impact tool (heat will help with this)  If these options fail start drilling with the lefty bits.  The heat and friction might just start turning it out.  If not, hope you get as lucky as I did with no significant thread damage.  BTW, I keep the drilled out stud on display on my work bench to help remind me to be more patient . . .

[JLeather]

Heat and lefty bits are what have always worked for me.  I'd say soak it with PBlaster for a week straight, morning and evening, then try heat and a good lefty bit.

[bryanj]

Blue Point (Snap On) due a straight fluted extractor (that is not LH thread tapered) comes with guides for drilling and a sliding nut to turn it. The full set is E-1020 but sit down before you buy---I just got one for 1/2 price and it was £50 ($100). Individual sizes are available

[scondon]

 The machine shop I use welds a bolt to the stub and drives it out with an impact wrench then chases the threads. Nice clean hole. Worth the price of admission and they've done three for me so far.

[Raul CB750K1]

If I were you, I would try to have access to a bench drill. Then, drill the stud remains progressively, to eat it from the inside. Once you are almost done, go ahead and inster a helicoil. That stud won't give you trouble anymore.


If you need some consolation just read my signature. It is from "Zen and the art of motorcycle mechanics" and describes the feeling of "stuckness" when something like what you have gone through happens. Suddenly, you feel there is no way out, you are "stuck". But that's when you pick up the pieces of yourself and get out of the stuckness, and end up wiser and more knowledgeable, both about mechanics and about yourself.

[Patrick]

So. nobody knows any tricks that involve, perhaps, chanting, a dead chicken and a self-extracting stud? Shoot...

And thanks, Scondon. Three times? Somehow that makes this a little easier to deal with....

[Raul CB750K1]

So. nobody knows any tricks that involve, perhaps, chanting, a dead chicken and a self-extracting stud? Shoot...

And thanks, Scondon. Three times? Somehow that makes this a little easier to deal with....

I tried an extractor once on an exhaust stud and it broke. It was a pain to remove it later. If you are going to drill a stud with a extractor broken into it, it is easier to drill the stud alone and you save time and the money a extractor costs.

[Patrick]

I've drilled out studs before. I've drilled out frozen corroded case bolts that snapped and had to be removed a chunk at a time. I had some luck. I haven't always been lucky. I've used heli coils. Practically every bolt holding the cam assembly on my K5 750 has heli-coils in the retaining holes in the head. That bike has 15,000 miles and counting on the rebuild and it's safe and reliable enough that I let my son take it off the college.

I know how, I just prefer not to if I can avoid it. Welding to bolt to the stub sounds like a pretty solid idea. I wish I had a welder and the talent to use it. No one else has done any work on any of my bikes. Except, of course, boring cylinders and street tires. I hate to break that string, but this is a cylinder stud.

Perhaps in the morning I break out the left hand bits and drill away. Maybe I'll get lucky and it will break loose and the stub will come out with the drill. That has happened to me before.

Patrick