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I am really feeling frustrated, doing general maint' and when replacing the left hand side radiator shroud, managed to strip the brass insert in the fuel tank! It has always been a problem to get the bolt lined up correctly and I now have an insert that is spinning weather I am turning clock / anti-clock. I have tried to wedge it and then loosen, but no joy!
Please if there are any suggestions out there please let me know -
it is a '05 220.
Thanks in advance.

You know, every one I've ever had do that, or other people I've seen it happen to has ended up being a lost cause. Hopefully yours won't be. We tried epoxy, super glue, melting the plastic back to it, digging it out, and everything else imaginable. Never had a successful attempt. All I can say is give it the good college try, and hopefully someone else know a trick or two. Good luck....

I'm surprised that a good epoxy didn't work. That would have been my suggestion. As far as the shrouds not fitting, I elongated the holes in the shrouds so that there was no longer a fitment problem.

Anyone know what kind of plastic it is? Is there a PP for Polypropylene, or PO for Polyolefin, etc. on it? Once you know what plastic it is, take the tank to an auto body shop and they might have the correct adhesive for it. 3M might have one for that specific plastic too.

Although I've never tried it, you might try P-Tex. P-Tex is a plastic used to repair the base on a ski. It comes in stick form, like a pencil. You light it on fire at one end, then hold it like a candle you are dripping wax from. Drip the P-Tex into the slop of the junction between the insert and the tank. After it hardens, chill it down with ice so it is hard when you try to back the bolt out of the insert. Since you are managing an open flame around a gas tank, remove the tank and fill with water while you do this to prevent explosion.

I've done it on two of them on my tank. I used a blunt drill to drill the bolt head which produced enough heat to melt the surrounding plastic to slide it out. Then simply pull the insert straight out. Clean out the hole and of course the bolt gets destroyed or damaged but you should be able to seperate the bolt and insert now. I used a 5 miniute aryldite? (epoxy) to glue them back in and they haven't moved after LOTS of shroud removals. Hope it helps some. This was the only way I found to get these buggers out.

OH BTW a torque wrench is your friend !!

Thanks for all the good info, will give it a go. To any one that has not done this yet heed the tip to slot the holes in the shroud, this was not a case of over tourque, purely an alighnment problem and the brass inserts do not seem to enjoy the cross-threading.
Thanks again and will post the results as soon as I have it figured.

Hi. Do all of the mounting areas on the 95 and up shrouds go into brass inserts or only some? On my '94, there are some of each. I always do the brass ones first.

If you can find out the type of plastic, I can find you an adhesive that will work. 3M has many adhesives that work on a variety of low surface energy plastics.

Mark

The two that attatch to the gas tank are brass and then there are two - one on each radiator that attatch to a clip - total of three bolts per shroud.

Low surface energy plastics, that went completely over my head, but I am sure that if I can find the correct type of adhesive to match the plastic I will have solved half the problem.
The other half is trying to get the bolt out - will try the suggestion of drilling it out and hopefully not having too big a hole left in the tank as a new one is approx' $ 263.00 and I could spend that much more comfortably on a FMF system.

Thanks for the bolt information. Good luck with your shroud.

Low surface energy plastics would be described as HDPE (high density polyethlyene) PE, Nylon, PP (polypropylene) and to the extreme teflon. Most plastiics, such as the gas tank would be classified as low surface energy meaning that not many things stick to it. Most of these plastics require some type of priming to force an adhesive to stick (liquid primers, flame treating, scuffing etc...). 3M has many different types of adhesives that require no priming and will cause a substrate failure verses a bond failure when the adhesive lets go.

I'll look for the plastic but I'm away form the bike for a few days.

Mark

While drilling it try to produce heat rather than drill the bolt head off. Apply constant pressure by pulling outwards on the bolt or shroud and when its hot enough it will slide straight out. As long as you keep pulling on it while drilling it will ensure you don't melt it too much... Just my experiences.. Hope it helps some.... Trev

http://www.urethanesupply.com I save this in my favs in case I ever needed it. Maybe you can find something you can use here!

If you can't find it here then I suppose it doesen't exist.
Good info' see why you have it book marked.
Thank you this will really help.

Use anti-seize on reassy.

A thread locker will work, too. Anything to keep the dissimilar metal reaction from happening.

A quick note :

The plastic fuel tank is made of polyethylene mark: >PE<
Aparently this can be repaired using a plastic welder and PE rods - a thermal repair.

I am going to H-Depo to see if there are any chemical products that would be compatible in repairing the tank.
Later.

Keep us posted on the tank repair. If you find something that works it would be handy for those of us with older tanks that Ma-Kawi won't swap on warranty.

-Maurice

WILCO

Managed to remove the insert last night.
Much like trying to pull a tooth, alot of force was needed to pull it out in relation to how little was needed to have the insert strip in the plastic.
Once the insert was removed, using a DREMEL tool to clear away most of the rough edges etc. used the JBWeld Kwik. to re- insert the insert??
The JB seems to hold but did not hold on the flat surfaces too well.
This said I was still able to sand the JB and have a fairly good finish.
Should this not be a pemanent solution I will post again.