Lost a header bolt this week

[Midnight82]

I am going to try to take tomorrow off work. I'm feeling a NASTY cold coming on (cough cough cough).

 

[kajer]

any luck with the bolts?


the dealership called me, told me my rear stud was broken

 

[Midnight82]

Dude, I broke two rear studs.

I ended up drilling them out and retapping the head. It's time to rebuild now. I'm estimating a total of 12 hours of labor on this bad boy by the time it's done.

Thank god I did it myself. HD would have probably charged me more to fix these two bolts than I paid for the entire bike.

Kajer - Let me know how it goes with your bike. You going to do it yourself? or have HD mess with it?

 

[rndrkeagle]

I'm thinking there might ought to be a recall on this stuff... how many of us have had these stupid studs break?

I had 1 broken stud on each head.... my out of pocket cost to get my bike back up and running (after taking both heads to a machine shop to get drilled out and have inserts put in) was close to $800!!! (counting the gasket set, the oil change that I did because my crank case sat open and exposed for 2 weeks, and the misc parts I needed for the job.. and that doesn't count the time I spent rotating the engine and pulling the heads etc..

If this many others are having the same probs... I'm beginning to think it could be considered a design flaw on the engine... (the harley part of course!)

 

[Midnight82]

Finally got the rear head back together. all new gaskets, new plugs and wires. Now it's time to rotate the motor back in and get the exhaust and plastics back on.

Awesome.

 

[xtreme6669]

Great work Eric, Can't wait to do some riding!

 

[Midnight82]

Should be riding by tomorrow night.

I'm taking my time putting it all back together because I don't want to have to rotate the motor again.

I'm going over everything with a fine tooth comb making sure everything looks legit/radical

 

[xtreme6669]

Cool, My buddy Tyler with the GSX-R wants to do a ride on Sunday... no location planed yet.

 

[kajer]

Midnight, My bike is a 2009 that i bought Oct. 2008, I'm still under warranty, HD can do it. Also, I got 4 more years of warranty for a small bit more per payment. So as long as I am paying off my loan, I have a bike under warranty.

 

[Midnight82]

While fighting to get my bike back together I did a couple DIY Mods.
Trimmed Windscreen:

And polished lip of the pulley:

The Pulley was EASY to do since I had the wheel off already, I used my grinder with a sanding disk. took about 2 minutes to do.

The windscreen was a lot tougher, It's clear that I don't have the steadiest of hands, but all in all I'm happy with it's turn out.

I'll probably pick up another screen sometime and take another shot at it. or just sand down the little wave I have in it.

 

[xtreme6669]

DUDE.... Quit messing around and get that thing back on the road!!

 

[Midnight82]

Wow, no love.