Re-Tap or Helicoil

[Boozy Creek Beast]

I Have a couple of bolts that have stripped out. I am wondering if I should use Helicoils or just re-tap the holes. All of the bolts are in the head. 2 are exhaust bolts and the other is one of the 4 bolts (position B) that hold the cam in place. What is the prefered method of correcting these problems.

The Beast

[odl777]

there was a guy talking about heely coiling the cam cap bolt and said it worked fine. may try looking up cam cap bolt stripped.

[hungryman]

If the theads are stripped out, you cannot simply re-tap. You need to go to the next size then tap. The next size bolt (or stud) may require more rework on the mating part, so this complicates the issue again.

The simplest method is to helicoil it.

[rosco15]

Heli-coil. Very easy to do. The kit is expensive. Probably about $40

[bwringer]

Yeah, what everyone else said - Helicoil it!

Helicoils are much stronger, too, which will be very important for that cam cap bolt.

[Ghostgs1]

I trust heli coils. We used to use them at the nuke plant many years ago. We even used them in Class 1 safety related equipment. They are even stronger than the original bolt hole was. They can take a much higher torque loading. Ray

[Planecrazy]

Check out http://www.aluminumrepair.com

There is a video on HTS-2000, which is quite intriguing, and it shows a number of repairs that are easy to do and which they claim are superior to more conventional methods. I haven't tried it yet (purchased some at the Chicago Motorcycle Show) but there are a number of testimonials from reputable sources that claim it works in situations where helicoils fail.

Worth considering...

Regards,

[Cappy]

Keenserts

I have used all types of inserts. One type reccomended to me in the past to fix an Aluminum two stroke barrel was a keenserts. These require a little more machining to insert but are much more of a permanent fix than helicoils. The keensert is screwed in and then cold formed to lock into place. I did all of the cylinder head taps on my Suzuki T500 barrel and it worked out great.

Greg.

[RJ]

I ran into the same problem with a cam cap bolt. I re-tapped the hole with a standard rather than metric thread which required no drilling and no forcing of the tap. No problems so far.