Thought about tapping it since that would be quick and easy (maybe -- unless
Murphey's law strikes again). But, the aluminum is so soft that I'm now
worried about it happening since the spark plugs get changed yearly. And I
don't want to have to pull the head again.
So, I decided to just do it right. I called around and the machine shops
charge $25 install each Helicall. I figure I'll get all the spark plug
holes done at the same time--it will be worth the $100 to not have to worry
about this happening again.
Of course, it appears I'm getting good at pulling heads. Only took me 1.5
hours this morning vice 8 hours of mucking around the first time. I guess
we do learn from best from our mistakes. 8^)
Cheers (and thanks everyone for the advice),
Nick
73
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xyzabcde@earthlink.net [mailto:xyzabcde@earthlink.net]
> Sent: Friday, October 30, 1998 2:42 PM
> To: coleman@sd.aonix.com
> Subject: Re: Argggg...Stripped Spark Plug (73B)
>
>
> Nick,
>
> I heartily concur with Andrew B. Lundgren that the first thing to try
> is chasing the threads with the correct size tap. Aluminum is
> soft enough that
> the threads can be pushed back into place. It might be better to
> run the tap in
> from the other side, but this means that the head will have to
> come off. Of
> course, some metal will be lost, but you can make sure that the
> spark plug is
> visually lined up every time you replace it from now on. If this
> doesn't work,
> you can still drill it out for a helicoil.
>
> Denise Thorpe
> ______________________________________
> As a child we had a 100cc motorcycle that was prone to fouling its
> plug. As we where children eventually we cross threaded the plug...
> We were able to get it out. We pulled the head and were able to repair
> the head. We ran a thread cutter of the same size through the hole to
> realign the threads. (probably got lucky, but it worked...)
>
> On Thu, 29 Oct 1998 21:42:26 -0800, Nick Coleman wrote:
>
> >I was using a Color Tune (just got it from Moss) to set the
> carbs. When I
> >screwed the color tune spark plug in, it stripped the threads on
> the head.
> >It must have been out of alignment (obviously) as I started
> screwing it in
> >(the color tune plug is small and hard to line up). And, this
> is on the new
> >Aluminum Head I just installed--Arggggg.
>
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