Hi guys,

here's the low-down.... I put my bike in for it's 5,000km's service at the local bike shop on a friday. When i picked it up, i had to wait an extra 1.5hrs coz they reckoned they were still working on it (after they told me it would be ready for pick up).. anyways.. that Friday night i went for a ride with mates - noticed oil all over my boots, so ended the ride short and rang the bike shop on the Saturday.

Saturday - service dept was closed..

Monday - rang service dept. and they told me to bring bike back in on tuesday..

Tuesday - take bike in and they fix the prolem - turns out that they stripped the hole that the rocker cover bolt goes into.... so they heli-coiled it.. (i had no idea what the hell this was)

anyways - my bikes now done an extra 3,500km's and that bolt has now snapped... leaving the thread in the hole... i'm gonna ring the bike shop tomorrow but i got a bad feeling that they're gonna try and screw me.. ever since the first service all i've heard is bad news of these guys..

what to do?!?!?

WHEN did you sent in you bike for service?  A month ago, a year ago?  IMO it depends on this info.

3,500 kms? Probably a few months at least. 

I think you are the mercy and discression of the shop. You could argue both ways that this was caused by them or just a new problem. Hopefully they will do the right thing.

Have you tried taking the valve cover off and seeing if you can screw the remains of the bolt out of the cam holder?

You snapped a bolt in a helicoiled fitting ... how ... over tightened
I have helicoiled several times including the damn top triple plate on a 89 where one of the threaded holes got boogered up in a crash. I'd have put money on it that it will ahve gotten busted. It was that frail looking ... but it held 5 years and 15K+ and I yanked it off and fiddled with it last year only to find out that ... its never comming out ...  ... I got it powdercoated and now cant even tell. I hate to say it ... but most everyone here knows it by now I guess ... take your time, anything that needs to be done, you gotta do it like time isn't a concern at all. That I think is the main reason shops do such a sloppy job. they want to slap it all back together and send it off as quickly as they can.
Cool.
Srinath.

The shop striped a thread?  Is this a dealer?  The most common reason a thread is stripped in an aluminum part is because the monkey working on it is too heavy handed and doesn't know how to use a freaking torque wrench.  I would have flipped a sh!t when I heard they stripped a thread. 

You can try to bring it back to them and argue about it, but you may be better off taking it to a competent mechanic and paying to have it fixed. 

The bolt may not be too difficult to get out.  Because it's in an oiled area it's probably not seized like an exhaust bolt would be and can be EZ-outed.  In any case, I'd still take it else where, I wouldn't want some clown who couldn't properly torque a bolt on my head drilling holes in my head.

I would demand the shop fix it for free and watch them while they work.

Quote from: JamesG on August 30, 2006, 06:31:21 AM
3,500 kms? Probably a few months at least. 

I think you are the mercy and discression of the shop. You could argue both ways that this was caused by them or just a new problem. Hopefully they will do the right thing.

Have you tried taking the valve cover off and seeing if you can screw the remains of the bolt out of the cam holder?

yeah service was done 2 months ago... i do a bit of weekend riding with my mates... 

there seems to be just enough thread left on the head of the bolt to get it to hold in place - but i dunno if it'll stay there.. i guess it'd been like that for a while now since a few of the guys reckoned they could smell oil about 1.5 weeks ago.... 

Quote from: ducati_nolan on August 30, 2006, 03:07:26 PM
I would demand the shop fix it for free and watch them while they work.

it's a bike shop - that has a service dept.. they've got 3 stores throughout Sydney (anyone from Sydney will probably know who i'm talking about)... i bought the bike originally from their suzuki store - but had a massive blue with the service wanker there so thought i'd try their other store near my work... guess they're all as bad as one another...

didn't get a chance to ring them again today - so will see what happens tomorrow..

Once it's fixed and you've watched them fix it, never take it back there (obviously). One thing that you need to watch out for when helicoiling/drilling/tapping/grinding on the inside of your engine is all the metal shavings/filings that can get in the oil and screw up the engine. Make sure they (or you) stuff rags into the cam chain hole of the engine to keep as much of the junk out of the engine as possible.

You may also want to degrease the top of the head prior to doing any work that may produce shavings, that way when the work is complete you can vacume or blow out the metal. Be especially carefull with the area under the cam lobes and arround the valve springs, this are looks like it could trap the metal and it could quickly destroy your cam. In any case it would be a good idea to change the oil soon after the work, and maybee even run some cheap oil in the bike for a couple hundred km then change the oil and filter again to flush out the remaining metal bits, just to be safe.
Good luck, karma should be treating you better soon (unless you did something really bad)

thanks for the info guys.... bike goe's in tomorrow - so will report in tomorrow arvo...