Stripped Hole

[yegg]

OK, I know I screwed up. If this was not a motorcycle I would know what to do next. I would like to get ideas before jumping into that solution and confirm what to do next.

One of the three 1/4"-20 screw holes that holds the air cleaner backing plate to the throttle body is stripped. When dealing with a stripped hole like this on a vault door I would drill out the remaining threads, tap accordingly, and install a helicoil. Is that appropriate for a bike? Does anyone know what the throttle body is made of? If it is aluminum I do not want to use a stainless steel helicoil and worry about corrosion.

 

[RoadWarrior]

I'd use a heli-coil. I'd imagine the TB is aluminum, but I wouldn't worry about electrolysis between the dissimilar metals. For that to happen there has to be an electrolyte...like water. No electrolyte, no corrosion. Installing steel or stainless heli-coils in aluminum is pretty standard...especially when you need more torque than the aluminum threads can hold.

Your only other option is to weld the hole, drill and tap. I wouldn't go there.

 

[JMeadows]

Check this out Loctite Form-A-Thread repair kit. Read the reviews, I think that it is the 5th one down. Have not used it myself but it might work.

http://www.amazon.com/Loctite-Form-A-Thread-repair-kit-grey/dp/B000WSEUII

 

[hulkss]

Check these out:

http://www.repairengineering.com/keensert.html

 

[JMeadows]

Check these out:

http://www.repairengineering.com/keensert.html

I have used one of these. On a 1987 Chevy Sprint. The Spark plug stripped out so I used one of there to repair it. I drove the car back & forth to work for over 5 years after that.
But with the Keensert you need to be able to drill it out, not sure how much extra material there is on his throttle body.

 

[yegg]

So I took the air cleaner off and took a good lock at what is going on. The three screws (only one is in question-the top left) are all through holes. I was not expecting that. I retapped the hole with a fresh tap and a few drops of cutting oil. After that I checked the threads with a fresh bolt. It snugged up just fine. I guess that was a long winded way to asking for opinions on whether to go ahead and install the helicoil or go without.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[azglocker]

Well if you wanted to reuse the stock hardware, you could put in a helicoil. Or time-sert. Otherwise the fix of just tapping it larger seems fine. I'm glad there was enough material left to fix it! I stupidly stripped my oil plug on the dyna (don't rush things. Impatience leads to problems) and while searching for repairs, I saw a few stories of people having extra metal welded to the pan to get things right again.

Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk

 

[Gunner]

Glad you got it fixed.