M
MisterCinders
Guest
So I popped my wrench cherry with an oil change on my 1978 GS750.
I suck at this.
Here is what I did.
Warmed engine up a bit.
Got the oil plug out.
Drained oil.
Removed oil filter cover.
Changed filter.
Return oil plug.
Use some grease and carefully replace oil filter gasket.
Reinstall oil filter cover and gently tighten fasteners. Problem, some prior oil change (PO?) involved swapping out the nuts. Seriously, there are three different nut on this beast --acorn, plain hex, and some kind of rounded hex (like an acorn but open on top).
Got the nuts on but could tell they were not grabbing well, particularly on one of the bolts. Tried each of the three to find the best fit.
Once it was on, I loaded up the oil. Checked for leaks. So far, so good.
Started engine.
You guessed it, the bike starts barfing oil out of the filter. The nut on the worst bolt jumped right off.
After a nice exhaust burn, I give up until morning.
This morning I tried and retried the nuts. They suck. Especially frustrating since each time I fumble, I had to pull the filter to double check the gasket. Of course, it stayed in place every time, waiting for me NOT to check it before leaping out, I am sure.
Anyway, I purchased some new nuts to reinstall the filter cover. These grabbed the bolts OK, but I am not terribly confident in them. I don't have a torque wrench, but I have been pretty conservative in tightening them, used the cross-cross method and went only just above finger tight, or so.
Replenished the oil that was lost.
Have run the engine on idle a few times this morning and watched for leaks. So far, so good. But I have my doubts.
I'd like to ditch these sketchy bolts and replace them with good ones.
I see in the Clymer's manual that part of the engine removal involves double-nutting one of these bolts to remove it. Can this be done for all three? Could I also dremel a slot and use a flat screwdriver to remove the bolts.
Once they are out, where can I get new bolts. At my local hardware spot, they had threaded rod, but nothing to match the threads I needed. They did have machine bolts (hex or pan) that had the right threads. I suppose I could cut the heads off. Or just use the bolts as fasteners, but going in an out of the block threads might be a bad idea.
What the hell should I do?
I suck at this.
Here is what I did.
Warmed engine up a bit.
Got the oil plug out.
Drained oil.
Removed oil filter cover.
Changed filter.
Return oil plug.
Use some grease and carefully replace oil filter gasket.
Reinstall oil filter cover and gently tighten fasteners. Problem, some prior oil change (PO?) involved swapping out the nuts. Seriously, there are three different nut on this beast --acorn, plain hex, and some kind of rounded hex (like an acorn but open on top).
Got the nuts on but could tell they were not grabbing well, particularly on one of the bolts. Tried each of the three to find the best fit.
Once it was on, I loaded up the oil. Checked for leaks. So far, so good.
Started engine.
You guessed it, the bike starts barfing oil out of the filter. The nut on the worst bolt jumped right off.
After a nice exhaust burn, I give up until morning.
This morning I tried and retried the nuts. They suck. Especially frustrating since each time I fumble, I had to pull the filter to double check the gasket. Of course, it stayed in place every time, waiting for me NOT to check it before leaping out, I am sure.
Anyway, I purchased some new nuts to reinstall the filter cover. These grabbed the bolts OK, but I am not terribly confident in them. I don't have a torque wrench, but I have been pretty conservative in tightening them, used the cross-cross method and went only just above finger tight, or so.
Replenished the oil that was lost.
Have run the engine on idle a few times this morning and watched for leaks. So far, so good. But I have my doubts.
I'd like to ditch these sketchy bolts and replace them with good ones.
I see in the Clymer's manual that part of the engine removal involves double-nutting one of these bolts to remove it. Can this be done for all three? Could I also dremel a slot and use a flat screwdriver to remove the bolts.
Once they are out, where can I get new bolts. At my local hardware spot, they had threaded rod, but nothing to match the threads I needed. They did have machine bolts (hex or pan) that had the right threads. I suppose I could cut the heads off. Or just use the bolts as fasteners, but going in an out of the block threads might be a bad idea.
What the hell should I do?
