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Stripped........

The last thing anyone wants is to stripe a thread. You may have done it yourself. Tightened something up too far and felt the spanner go loose on the nut. Yep a stripped thread. Rant and raving normally then follows with spanners being thrown into the darkest corner of the garage. Well I have stripped thread. A nasty one it is too. A major one! The top left hand cylinder stud. First let’s roll back a day.......

Saturday. I did an oil change. Went and bought some lovely 20w50 Penzoil. Came home and dunped the old oil. Drained the oil cooler. Refilled the engine. Primed the oil cooler as per the manual. Then off for a ride. I went up through Bobbin Head and through to Mt Colah. Got petrol and was heading for the Old Pac. As I was changing up a gear my foot slipped from under the gear pedal. Never had this happen before! So try again and same thing. Foot slips out from under the shift pedal. I look down and my left boot is covered in fresh oil. I pull over and see oil dripping from the underneath of the left cylinder at the head gasket. Ok this is a BMW and they are tough. If I ride a sedate pace I should get home ok. I do and leave the bike for this morning. Thinking about this overnight maybe I had not torqued the head down correctly last weekend? Maybe I had missed one of the nuts?

This morning I recheck the head bolts. All ok bar the top left one. It keeps winding out. Silly me! I should not have kept winding the nut up. I assumed it would get tight. It kept winding and pushing the stud out further. So much so, that I can’t get the rocker cover back on. The stud has stripped its thread in the engine casing.






Same thing happened to this guy.....

Strange thing is I have been noticing a weeping of oil at the front of the left cylinder. At the head gasket. Now I know why.

Now to find someone who can fix it? Helicoil maybe? I will let you know.

I am off the road till then. :-(
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