Intake boot screws stuck :(

[Anonymous]

i'm waiting for it to warm up enough that i can wear short sleeves. it's windy-ish right now, then i'll go give the impact screwdriver some more whacks.

well, I made a slot in one of the trashed screws and got it out. so i figured that might be the best route, made slots in all of them and promptly stripped them. i tried grinding off the head of one, but i'm afraid i'm gonna shred that boot, even if i go slow-- any suggestions?

how should i go about drilling it out?

[Planecrazy]

Thanks for this thread. I too was having trouble getting boot screws out. Could only get a couple of the outside ones off with an impact wrench before runing out of room to swing a hammer. Tried the cordless drill with a clutch trick and it worked like a charm!

Glad it worked for you, Edbot!

Now, regarding the best way to grind down the remaining heads with a dremel, I'd take the metal away slowly and carefully the same way you cut the slots in the first place. Then, when you get really close to the boot, take a needlenose pliers and work the remaining "edge" of the screws back and forth till they break off and allow the boot to slight off the shank. Then you can grab the rest of the screw with a vice grips and muscle it out.

Good Luck!
Steve 8)

[Anonymous]

it's so tedious. i've been at it for 3 hours, roughly, and i haven't even gotten close enough to get part of the screw folded up and ripped off.. i think they're on way tighter than they're supposed to be, as I can't work a screwdriver under the edge of the screw.

[Anonymous]

Alrighty. Finished with it.

I ended up dremelling 6 of the screws off, because I couldn't get at them.I used a heavy duty cutting wheel and shaved the head of the screw clean off. the o-rings are absolutely flat. While they don't have any cracks that I can see, they definitely needed replacement.

One thing that made me shudder, however, was that after I got finished (as soon as the heads were off, the screws came out with my fingers) i flushed some WD-40 through the holes, and got a bunch of crunched up aluminum... icky.

[Anonymous]

If its only one.

Once you get them out you can replace them with allen bolts, and anti sieze. The home depot I went to has a good enough selection of black allen bolts. I also used 4 chrome ones on the tops of my outer CV carb tops. The chrome ones came from bicycle water bottle brackets. I had one that was stuck so I cut the head off with a dremel, removed the intake boot, and grabbed the remaining screw with some vice grips.

I now have about $30.00 worth of allen bolts , and two or three packets of anti sieze on my bike. I think the only screws left on my whole bike are holding the left and right controls on. Those will go also as soon as I have them off again.