damaged screw heads- help!
 

Being an SV, with bolts made of Dairylea, I have a couple of screw heads that have crumbled under my efforts to remove them from the bike.

One is a chain guard screw- I've tried filing a slot to get a wide flat head screwdriver onto it, but to no avail- though this is ongoing. The screw head seems well solid against a file, but not a screwdriver!!

Also, the screw on the rear choke plunger assembly has done the same. (apparently, these are ?11 a pop...)

So- not having to have dealt with this much in the past, I'm not really equipped to sort this out myself and haven't got a clue how to/don't want to cause more damage (esp. to the carbs!)

Before I panic and hand the bike over to a mechanic and sort the problem (at ?47/hour), are there any tools/techniques that will help me deal with this in the future?

Re: damaged screw heads- help!
 

You can with a very very steady havd drill them out.

Failing that you can also buy reverse screws, you basically drill a 1/2mm pilot hole then use a resverse screw to drill into the offending screw, as its going in reverse it locks on the offending screw and screws it out ( I have rarely ever been able to get this technique to work.....you can buy them in halfords)

Re: damaged screw heads- help!
 

The screw on the carb choke plunger's a bit of a git for doing that. Apparently you can use a set of mole grips to crush it slightly and turn it with them, as access to the side should be ok. I have also had some success drilling the head off it as the thread was fine, it had seized to the plate behind it.

Re: damaged screw heads- help!
 

Cheers folks- reverse thread screw- GENIUS!

Re: damaged screw heads- help!
 

So long as you've not completely rounded the screw heads, you could try using a hammer with your screwdriver and "shock" them out?

You will of course need to be careful with the choke plunger screw, but it should be do-able. Plus if that doesn't work, you can always then try the reverse thread jobbers or some easy outs.

Re: damaged screw heads- help!
 

Sorry to hear about your latest bit of bovver:(

In my Factory pro jet kit they included new allen bolts for the chokes and the tops of the carbs. well worth replacing with something similar and not 11 quid cr@p ones.

Good luck:cool:

Re: damaged screw heads- help!
 

Dunno about the swinging arm one but I had the same thing on the choke plunger. Get a largish flat screwdriver and put it on the edge of the screw head and tap it with a hammer. You want it so it's tangential and obviously tapping to try to turn the thing anitclockwise. You might need to make a notch first with a cold chisel so the screwdriver doesn't slip off too easily but a few taps should free it up.

Re: damaged screw heads- help!
 

I would leave this as a last resort!

Use some plus gas or something to lose the screw a bit. A wide screw driver (wider than the grove) press on it hard and tap with a hammer (could do both directions to lose it). Works for me every time.

Re: damaged screw heads- help!
 

plus one for molegrips...

Re: damaged screw heads- help!
 

Be very careful of using any shock treatment on the chainguard bolt. It's a fairly thin tab of ally that it goes through and snapping it off the swingarm would be a bit of a sod...


Jambo