[Arcturus1208]

Hello and Happy Father’s Day to all to whom it applies!

Went to change out my air filter today and found that one of the housing bolts is good and seized. I obviously regret not applying anti-seize. Unfortunately, I also damaged the bolt head. It’s not completely rounded out but it’s pretty bad.

Now while I’m certainly not thrilled about it, I’ve been planning on having the stage 1 intake and pipes installed and so will probably just go ahead and have it done now. I’ve dealt with damaged bolts before but not quite like what I’ve got here and so figured that I’d just let the shop know about it when I call to schedule the install.

My questions are these: First, has anyone else had trouble with their air box bolts seizing up? Second, how do you think the shop will deal with the bolt? I absolutely trust the place where I’ll be taking it and so this is really just me being curious about how motorcycle mechanics typically handle situations like this.

Thanks!

 

[NI Bob]

Had a similar issue with mine, when I serviced my RM a few weeks back and all the air box bolts were indeed seized, not so bad that they would not come out but certainly well corroded in there.

You could try using an impact driver and see if that will shift it, if the bolt head is damaged try cutting a slot on it and using an impact driver with a flat screwdriver attachment. Worse case is you break the head off and it has to be drilled out. You could also try soaking it in penetrating oil and applying heat.

I think the issue is caused by a reaction between dissimilar metals leading to corrosion, upon reassembly I applied copper anti seize grease.

I would advise anyone with the 111TS to remove these bolts clean and apply anti seize grease as preventative maintenance before it gets the point were they will not come out as you have experienced.

 

[Mickb]

Every time I undo a bolt on the Scout I reinstall it with anti seize grease on the thread. Most of the bolts installed by Indian are corroding in the threads.

 

[LongRoadHome]

When I saw this was about an air filter I thought of the Scout.

Both times I put a new filter in, one or more bolts were extremely tight. First time would’ve been after a dealer install, second was from me.
It doesn’t appear to be about corrosion, at least nothing visibly. Some of the threads just seem to be sticky. I don’t know if it’s low quality machining or what.

 

[Hatt]

If you can, moderately tap on the bolt with hammer or punch from straight down upon the head A few times. It's helpful for disruption of the corrosion. Also PB blaster is your friend.

If the bolt breaks, as you likely know, drilling out is only available option left.

 

[Mack]

Try a bolt extractor socket. It'll bite around the rounded portions of the bolt head. I had a similar situation with a drain plug on my car when I munched the head off the bolt pretty badly. Worked like a charm.

 

[Davetac1]

A high heat gun usually works pretty good to heat the fastener up with.[it's kinda like a womens hair dryer but puts out a lot more heat] Try using one of those,[heating up one fastener up at a time] then try breaking it free using a good quality 4mm allen head wrench.Then the next one and so on. I bought my heat gun a looooooooong time ago and have used it "successfully" over the years on a number of occassions in close quarter areas.If your bike is like mine, [I beleive it is] the fasteners used to hold the cover on use a 4mm allen head fastener. The air filter itself is held on by three 8MM socket head bolts.If and when ya get em out,apply alittle never seize on the threads so the next guy that takes that cover off [which just might be you,lol lol] will be able to get the job done "WITHOUT" all this hassle. Good luck! Dave!!!

 

[Arcturus1208]

Thank you all!

 

[WillyH]

Had a similar issue with mine, when I serviced my RM a few weeks back and all the air box bolts were indeed seized, not so bad that they would not come out but certainly well corroded in there.

You could try using an impact driver and see if that will shift it, if the bolt head is damaged try cutting a slot on it and using an impact driver with a flat screwdriver attachment. Worse case is you break the head off and it has to be drilled out. You could also try soaking it in penetrating oil and applying heat.

I think the issue is caused by a reaction between dissimilar metals leading to corrosion, upon reassembly I applied copper anti seize grease.

I would advise anyone with the 111TS to remove these bolts clean and apply anti seize grease as preventative maintenance before it gets the point were they will not come out as you have experienced.

Yep, impact driver. I've used one at times over the years to save the day, but haven't had to with my Vintage, not yet. For the past few years when removing and reinstalling bolts, instead of never or anti seize I've lightly coated the bolt threads with paste wax. I have an old can of Collinites 885 that serves the purpose and after the wax is applied the bolts are then easy out & back in. And the Collinites is a lot less messy than the anti seize

 

[splitt]

The head on the bottom allen bolt on my wife's Springfield stripped out the first time I went to check her air filter.

I did the old trick of hammering a sharp chisel into one side of the button head, then turn the chisel to hit it in a counter-clockwise direction to break the bolt loose. (just remember that the threaded insert that the bolt goes in to is pressed in to a plastic air filter backing plate, so don't get too crazy, or else you may be buying more than a bolt by the time that you're done) Once I got the bolt out, I placed it in my vice. I hammered down the gouge that I made with the chisel point first. Then I ******* engineered the allen head into a torx head by taking a torx bit slightly larger than the rounded out allen wrench hole and hammered it down into the bolt head, then removed the torx bit.

I applied anti-seize when reinstalling the bolts on the air filter cover. The next time that I ordered from cheapcycleparts.com, I got a replacement bolt to fix the damaged one.

 

[Hoosier]

The head on the bottom allen bolt on my wife's Springfield stripped out the first time I went to check her air filter.

I did the old trick of hammering a sharp chisel into one side of the button head, then turn the chisel to hit it in a counter-clockwise direction to break the bolt loose. (just remember that the threaded insert that the bolt goes in to is pressed in to a plastic air filter backing plate, so don't get too crazy, or else you may be buying more than a bolt by the time that you're done) Once I got the bolt out, I placed it in my vice. I hammered down the gouge that I made with the chisel point first. Then I ******* engineered the allen head into a torx head by taking a torx bit slightly larger than the rounded out allen wrench hole and hammered it down into the bolt head, then removed the torx bit.

I applied anti-seize when reinstalling the bolts on the air filter cover. The next time that I ordered from cheapcycleparts.com, I got a replacement bolt to fix the damaged one.

Didn't have my cheaters on so when I loosened the first one with my Allen wrench I thought I was good to go. Ended up stripping one of them. Once I put my cheaters on I realized those were torx. Make sure you check.

Hello and Happy Father’s Day to all to whom it applies!

Went to change out my air filter today and found that one of the housing bolts is good and seized. I obviously regret not applying anti-seize. Unfortunately, I also damaged the bolt head. It’s not completely rounded out but it’s pretty bad.

Now while I’m certainly not thrilled about it, I’ve been planning on having the stage 1 intake and pipes installed and so will probably just go ahead and have it done now. I’ve dealt with damaged bolts before but not quite like what I’ve got here and so figured that I’d just let the shop know about it when I call to schedule the install.

My questions are these: First, has anyone else had trouble with their air box bolts seizing up? Second, how do you think the shop will deal with the bolt? I absolutely trust the place where I’ll be taking it and so this is really just me being curious about how motorcycle mechanics typically handle situations like this.

Thanks!

 

[Hoosier]

Didn't have my cheaters on so when I loosened the first one with my Allen wrench I thought I was good to go. Ended up stripping one of them. Once I put my cheaters on I realized they were torx. Make sure you check.

 

[Hoosier]

Sorry for the dual reply. Apparently I haven't mastered the reply thing yet.

 

[Twist it]

Here's a question for all, when do you use anti seize on threads and when do you use loc tite? When installing accessories I thought it is good to use loc tite because bikes bounce around alot and you don't want parts falling off. Exhaust bolts and spark plugs I thought you always use high temp anti seize.

 

[SSHardball22]

I have used this quite a bit with great luck. In my opinion it is the best out there.