Instrument cluster bracket - ignition barrel removal

Howdee all,

I have a (slow going) WR250RR project going at the moment. My hope is to mount a rally type fairing to the bike and a nav tower for either roadbook or GPS depending on whether I rally or adventure bike.

As a part of that project, I want to relocate the stock instrument cluster.

As some have discovered, the instrument bracket is bolted to the top triple by one regular bolt and another tamper proof shear bolt under the ignition switch. Others have had to remove these bolts to either replace the ignition barrel, or remove the instrument cluster to fit an 8" Trailtech race light or lynx fairing.

Options:
- Cut the bracket (as some have done)
- remove the tamper proof bolts

I wanted to be able to leave the bike in stock form while the project develops. So option 2 it is!

First attempt: Pin punch (Fail)
Id read you can tap tamper proof bolts with a punch. Good in theory, but as you will see later there was no way a punch would get through all the locktite.

As you can see I really butchered the bolt as well as some of the ignition switch bracket (you can also see a pin punch hole in the centre of the bolt for my 2nd attempt).

2nd attempt: Grabits/eziouts (fail)
Having bad experiences with eziouts in the past snapping off in the bolt I was hesitant to try this. Fortunately with the ignition barrel so close to the bolt, the drill chuck would not allow me to get the grabit in line with the bolt head. I say fortunately because given how tight the bolt is (and the amount of locktite) I daresay the grabit would have snapped off in the bolt...

3rd attempt: drill the head (success!!)
After butchering the bolt, I used an 8mm drill bit and drilled the centre of the head until the head of the bolt broke.

(On the other side, I used a pin punch to get a starter hole in the centre, drilled a pilot hole with a 3mm bit then went to town on it with an 8mm bit til the head broke. Much cleaner on the second one!)

Heads removed, the ignition barrel is free:


Studs exposed:


Use vice grips to remove the remaining studs:




The removed tamper proof bolts (top one is much cleaner than the butchered first one!):


My replacement bolts, M8 stainless button heads. I could only get 30mm thread length locally, so used a hacksaw to cut them down to 23mm thread length. 25mm might work, 20mm definitely would (about 3mm shorter than the stock bolts) but I didnt try it:




There you have it. I hope this helps someone. To drill and vice grip from the start would be a pain free experience. While some might think the bike is less secure without the security bolts I think if someone is going to steal my bike, the tamper proof bolts arent going to be the limiting factor. At some point down the track I may replace the bolts with tamper proof ones again, available for $1 each at yamaha sports plaza at the time of writing this post.

Nice write up with pictures. Thanks for doing this.

I have the Lynx Fairing on my WRR and cut the bracket off. I would like to re-locate the ignition switch since it is sort of hard to get to now. So I will keep this removal proceedure in mind!

One thought I had. Wonder if you could JB weld another bolt to the top of those so you can back them out. I have no idea if JB weld would be strong enough.

Id considered the welding of a nut on the end but dont own a welder at the moment... Is JB weld drillable? If it is you dont have anything to lose, if it doesnt work just drill them both out. Both bolts were pretty damn tight. As you could see from the pin punch attempt, a lot of material was butchered and the bolt didnt even budge a bit. The difficulty i think is the lock tight. Maybe heating it could break the bond before trying to unscrew it (pin punch or jb welded nut). Advantage of driling is the pressure of the bolt head is released making the remaining threads easier to turn. Even with the pressure released they were still pretty tight to remove.

Best of luck with it, show us pics of your relocation bracket if you do move it!

Thanks for taking the time to write that up and post the photos. Here it is in early 2016 and your post helped me out while I mounted a Lynx fairing to my WR250X/R. Your write up has been a help!

I'm about to have to change my ignition switch. Were you able to do this with the triple tree flipped over but still tangled up with wires on the bike? I hope so, looks like a pain to remove all the way. Thanks

It was along time ago so honestly don’t remember sorry!