Advice needed!

[Giggity]

2 issues:

1. I drained the oil yesterday and found a fair amount of metal shavings. Should I flush the crank case to make sure all are removed? What would I use?

2. I managed to strip the hex head on the final drive filler cap.
That sucker is stuck. What should I do now?

Thanks

[GARTHXS]

advice

When I was a boy my father told me "if you are not getting laid, lower your standards!!"
Oh, sorry about the bike it doesn't sound good , for the metal shavings , does this bike run and it could possibly be tranny related and for the bolt either a drill or an easy out , soak that sucker w/pb blaster and have fun

[DGXSER]

Metal shavings...hmmm....in the engine....HMMMMM....I would probably pull the oil pan and take a look inside to see if you can find the source. Not TOO much work to get that pulled, just pop the exhaust off, drain the oil, and then pull about 12 bolts IIRC. I'd want to know where those came from. Dependng what they are from, identifying the source now could save you MAJOR engine work later.

As to the stripped bolt, Yeah soak it in blaster for a while. I would probably try taking a slightly larger heax head and see if you can "lightly" drive it into the hole to get a bite, or a standard screw driver, anythign to get a bite obviously. My opinion on extractors is they shoudl be LAST resort ONLY. They will break off fairly easy in the worst possible locations DAMHIKIJK. They make LEFT handed drill bits, these are a much better strating point in my opinion.

[wa407mpp]

What kind of metal shavings, steel or brass, that will give you a idea what is shaving. With babbitt bearings it's not unusual to find some brass shaving during oil changes. Have you torn apart an oil filter to see if they are traveling through the oil system, where they could plug an oil Chanel. As for the striped rear plug. Do you have one of those bit sets with all the standard and metric Allan bits that fit in a screwdriver and have a 1/4 drive socket to adapt them to a ratchet, if so try lightly driving the next size standard into the hole, then use an adapter to adapt it and the socket to your impact driver 1/4 to 3/8, then after spraying the threads with penetrating oil, hit the impact driver hard enough to make it work, but not hard enough to break the housing. I've used this trick for years and it usually does the job.

[wa407mpp]

If you don't have a replacement plug you can drill through the old one, after removing it of course , and thread the hole for a short metric Allen bolt that takes the same size wrench as before and the put a nyclad nut on the back side to keep it tight.

[Giggity]

The shavings were steel. Also some other gritty substance in there that appears to be sand to me. No shavings in the filter, just a bit of the sand.

I have the allen bits, but no impact driver - yet.

[Rasputin]

On the final drive filler you can use a chisel too. I have had to do it before. Just catch an edge with the chisel and give it a solid (not overly hard) whack in the correct direction. This will usually break it free and then you can spin it out from there.

[rekievit]

...As to the stripped bolt, Yeah soak it in blaster for a while. I would probably try taking a slightly larger heax head and see if you can "lightly" drive it into the hole to get a bite ...

I just did this yesterday and got it work, used pb and lightly hammered in a 6 instead of the 5.5. Once it was in solid I gave it a good kick to break the seal.

[wa407mpp]

How's your clutch working ? that could be clutch lining, or do you have kids with a sand box?

[Giggity]

Got the plug out!

I used a Dremel to cut a slot, put a breaker bar in slot then used a big Crescent wrench to turn it out. Oh yeah, liberal amounts of PB also.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

[Giggity]

407,

I have yet to ride her so I don't know how the clutch is working.

[dbeardslee]

The first time I changed the oil on Betsy it looked like kitty-litter coming out of the crankcase. I gave her a treatment of seafoam in the oil (don't run it with a load, just let it idle for about 20 minutes), and changed the oil and filter again. A couple months later when I redid the clutch, everything was spotless, except the clutch plates were very rusty and the lining was pretty much gone on the friction plates. I agree with WA - the lining from the friction plates is probably the gritty stuff you saw.

[fredintoon]

Got the plug out!
I used a Dremel to cut a slot, put a breaker bar in slot then used a big Crescent wrench to turn it out. Oh yeah, liberal amounts of PB also.
Thanks for all the suggestions!

Hi Giggity,
you'd swear those plugs welded themselves in, right? When I finally got the filler plugs out of my final and mid drives (I filed two flats on their edges and used an open-end wrench on mine) I drilled out the mangled hexagonal holes to 6mm and brazed in the stub-end of an M6 bolt so now they can be removed with a box-end like they should have been made to do in the first place.
& back in the day we used flushing oil. I wonder if you can still get it? anyway, a 50/50 mix of 10W30 and diesel fuel will work OK too. Run the bike only on idle for no more than 2 minutes then drain.

[Steptoe]

mmm uh-oh

g,day giggity, reading thru your little problem I,d be agreeing with fredintoon, flush the old girl also for the sake of 1/2-3/4 hr I would be pulling the pan off the bottom and checking the oil pump gauze and pulling the clutch apart for a look and a clean. you don,t want any fine particles tearing ruddy great tracks thru bearing faces.I know its hard, all you want to do is get on and go BUT a bit time may be the diff of saving a bucket load of $$$$$ or it turning into a bucket of the proverbial

[Giggity]

Thanks for the advice, gents. I figured there must be some way to flush that crap out. Should I put in an oil filter for the flush?