retorqe

[SFSPECBIKER79]

i was wondering if anyone has retorqued the head on their xs? and would they be any harm in doing so. any feedback would be appreciated. after thirty years i wouldnt think it would hurt. my 2cent

[Ken Talbot]

I think there might be value in re-torquing shortly after doing a top end rebuild. Once everything has had 30 years of sitting in one place and building up a layer of corrosion, you would probably be more apt to break something if you tried to torque it up a bit more.

Chances are you would have to apply way more torque, in the loosening direction, than the spec calls for, just to get the fastener to move. Then it would seem kind of pointless to torque it back up again.

YMMV

[SFSPECBIKER79]

thanks ken, mabe i should have said this. my head bolt,nuts are rusted to much to clean up. what i had in mind was trying to replace them with some shiny ones, what are the chances of them breaking off the threaded part of the rod?when trying to loosein them.

[Ken Talbot]

That should work. I've done a couple of top ends without breaking any head bolts, and I don't think I've ever heard of anybody else breaking one.

It would probably make sense to do them one at a time i.e. break one free and remove it, replace it with a new one to the proper torque, then move on to another one.

[petejw]

just a quick note
if you retension your head,
u should adj ur cam chain.

[Bigleo]

Hi, mine were pretty rusty as well. I did what Ken recommended and replaced one at a time, retorquing as I went. I then re adjusted the cam chain in case the head or crankcase gasket had flattened some more during the process. No problems. It doesn't sound to good when you are starting to remove the nut, lots of screeching noises for the first turn or two. But it never got close to breaking the stud, probably about 40 ft/bs of torque to break the nut loose.
Leo

[SFSPECBIKER79]

thanks ya'll, for the advice . i already feeling better about doing it, i'll give it a try hopefully i want run into trouble.

[SFSPECBIKER79]

is the head nut a hard to find part to find? or does the yamaha parts counter usally have these on hand.

[Bigleo]

I last got mine from Bike Bandit, but have got them from the dealer as well. The dealer had to order them in. They are a bit expensive though. It's a 10mm 1.25 pitch thread if you can find metric acorn nuts.
Leo

[trbig]

Just a cheat...you could only replace the outer 8 (4 on each side). Nobody will ever see the internal 4 with your tank on. As far as that goes... nobody will ever see anything except the outside 4 unless they are looking straight down into your head (on the bike.. ) lol.

I bought mine here for $2.88 + shipping for nice chrome ones...

Acorn nuts

They end up fitting a 5/8" wrench or 16mm... but they sure do look nice on there. I was worried about them being deep enough to allow for the complete head stud threads, but there was no problems.

I am in opposition to the others on here though. I think if you loosen one, you should loosen them all then re-torque with some oil on the threads. You could end up with some warpage otherwise. Loosen just a half turn or so in proper order, then loosen all the way in order. Don't forget about the little 12mm nuts on the front and back middle bottom. Then afterwards.. run the motor up to operating temps.. let it cool off and re-torque again.


Tod