I broke it!

So I buy my wr yesterday, figure I should start on my maintenance fresh as I have no way of knowing when the last oil change was.... annnd I broke it. One of the bolts holding the oil filter snapped on me. Changed the oil, tightened everything up, and after a quick ride I noticed a leak at the bottom of the cover. Snugged them up a little bit more, went for another quick ride and saw the leak had returned, so, using just your standard ratchet drive i snugged them up a little bit and BAM snap =(

I replaced the o-rings with fresh ones too.. =\

I am very sad to have broken my new to me bike ! What do!?

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Saw a couple posts after doing a more extensive search on the subject and it seems like it isn't too serious. I think I'm going to have the shop deal with it when I get my new tires in; as I can't get a good grip on it with vice grips. Still sucks though!

I have had real good luck mig welding a hex nut on the broken bolt. Some times you have to weld more then one if they bust off but the nuts are cheap and it almost always works. I broke a thermostat housing bolt on my truck engine one time and figured this trick out. I have done it many more times since. The bolt sould come out easy since you just had it out. If you dont have a welder take it to someone that does. Good luck, Alan

Can you grab that little tit with needle-nosed pliers?

I have a 1/8th left handed drill bit in my tool box that I have user on bolts in the past to get them out. That might be too big a bit for that bolt but what it does is drill into the bolt and sometimes bites enough to take the bolt out if it doesn't I've now got my hole to use with an easy out. I just picked my drill bit up at the local home hardware store.

motokid wrote:

Can you grab that little tit with needle-nosed pliers?

I think I'm going to have to try. The clamps of my vice grips aren't "precise" enough to close over the nipple that's sticking out.

I'm hoping the leak is gone once I get this fixed, as it was the cause of my plight. Wasn't leaking prior to this oil change, which is why I thought I hadn't tightened it down enough.

rodskies wrote:

I'm hoping the leak is gone once I get this fixed, as it was the cause of my plight. Wasn't leaking prior to this oil change, which is why I thought I hadn't tightened it down enough.

It's easy to be fooled into thinking the oil filter cover is leaking just after an oil and oil filter change.
Since the sealing O-ring on the cover is not at the extreme outside perimeter of the cover, but a couple of millimeters inward from the cover edge, there will be a film of oil outside of the sealing lip of the O-ring when the cover is bolted in place.
The O-ring has no sealing effect on this oil film, so gravity has it dripping downward, resulting in a couple drops of oil at the bottom of the cover.
No amount of torque on the cover bolts will stop this.

With my WR-250R and WR-250X, I'd have a couple of drops of oil forming at the bottom of the cover for the first few minutes after an oil change.
After this oil was wiped away, the oil drops would stop as that non-sealed oil film was used-up.

Those 6mm bolts will take a mere 7 ft/lbs. of torque, something your wrist can easily achieve with a small ratchet.

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Just so you don't feel alone.

Another thing to try is to take a hammer and give the left over part of the screw a tap tap tap then it may back out, you know, negotiate with it a bit. If it has just broke from over tightening then this method sometimes does the trick. If you bottomed the thing on the threads/bottom then it will definatly have to be machined/drilled out. I am a machinist and I have dealt with many broken bolts over the years. The left hand drill bit is good advice as well. It works like a charm most of the time.

Here is a video I found on you tube that shows how to weld a nut to a bolt if anyone else wants to see how its done. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKlYKG2vyaA&feature=relmfu

Better video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRrz-cphBY4

Dude, REAL EASY. Gp to your local hardware store and get some "screw extractors". You can buy a little kit with about 5 of em for about $15. You then drill a tiny hole in the screw, make sure you only drill the screw!!!! And then screw your extractors in. You screw em in by turning them left, therefore once they are in deep enough, they will grab the screw and it will start to unscrew outwards. Easy. Good luck!!!

Just remember to center punch that bolt before you start drilling to keep the drill from wandering.

fixed it today. Used a small hammer and even smaller punch to tap it out maybe 1/16th of a turn and was able to grab it ever so slightly with some good needle nose plies. WHIEW!