Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Stripped bolt hole-what to do?

I stripped a hole when I was replacing the engine bolts with the stainless steel ones from Brent. Its on the clutch side, one of the bolt holes that hold on the clutch cable retainer. What can I do to fix it, or should I not worry? It screws in but does not hold.

I actually just stripped out the same bolt hole. I was thinking I had to take the cover off and put in a helicoil but I dunno how hard that will be to do.. It seems to me the metal on these bikes is really soft aluminum. Kinda scary

If the case is fine w/o it as far as leaking, you could just use some loctite just to keep the bolt in for looks. i gotta think one less bolt probably wouldn't cause any problems, but i could be wrong.

Hoping Ryan will chime in here as he did the same thing and developed a weeping oil leak. Nothing serious, just annoying. Yo Ryan, what finally fixed her?

I would think that over time the flexing of the cable retainer would not be a "good thing" for the remaining bolt.

You might take a piece of wire or an icepick and see if it is a blind hole or if it goes all the way through. If you can determine the depth of the hole and compare it to the length of the bolt, you may find there are some more threads in the hole and a carefully installed, slightly longer bolt, may hold until you have a reason to take the side cover off and fix it properly.
If you end up putting the original bolt back in for show and leak prevention purposes only, a judicious smearing of RTV on the threads may help hold it in place and seal it up temporarily.

Judicious Smearing - that'd be a good name for a band....!

The hole doesn't seem to go all the way through. The bolt screws in, but will not tighten. It seems to hold but keeps spinning, so I know its not holding tightly. I tried to pull it out with my fingers and it wouldn't come out. I don't want it to leak. Can I retap the hole without the fear of messing it up further?

You won't be able to re-tap the hole, it will need to be fixed.
A heli-coil would be the easiest fix. To do that you need to remove the cover completely, redrill to the larger size required then insert the heli-coil using a bolt and nut in a tap wrench. I usually start the first couple of threads with a taper tap so that it goes in perfectly straight. It will then have a steel thread which should not strip. Replace cover and all bolts using torque wrench.

The only other (and best) alternative is to have the case repaired by a machine shop which requires welding the hole and re-drill / tap to original spec.

Try the heli-coil first would be the best option, good luck!

I had the same problem about 3 years ago. There are two bolts. The one I stripped was not the clutch cable load bearing bolt, and the bracket provided its own cantilevering resistance. I just put the bolt back in, with some lock tight, and it never came out. I am not at home now, so I can't see which it was. However, I never have had any problem or leak.

When I replaced my bolts (with Brent's), I ended up with two different lengths in the clutch cover bracket.
At the time, I thought maybe I'd gotten off by one hole in the rotation.
This stripping seems to be a pretty common problem, though.
That makes me wonder if one of the bolts typically IS shorter.

This is an age old issue with those who replaced their bolts with Brent's stainless kit. To those who are newer to this forum and decide to replace the bolts OR who are just removing and replacing their original bolts for whatever reason, remember that the torque specs are just 9 Nm. which is nothing more than hand tight with an extra quarter turn. Cast aluminum doesn't like the he-man approach to wrenching.

It seems that the clutch cable bolts were the only ones that ended up stripping. (mine never did using the 9 Nm torque wrench setting) Had I been doing it by hand I'm sure I too would have overtightened.

jaymo's right. If you're going to wrench on your own bike, buy a good torque wrench and follow the specs.