found stripped cam holder bolts

thanks thats the kind of thing i was looking for and i have 3 holes to repair and i will be going today to harbour freight to buy a in lb torque wrench,thanks for your help.however i am still not entirely sure how far to push my luck on torque,perhaps 80 in lbs

I just torqued the bolts on my 73 z1 down to 105in/lb. They don't make torque specifications for looks

well i did go ahead and buy a heli coil kit and before i finished 5 hrs later i had to fix 5 holes! when i torqued i went to 90 in lbs and decided to stop before i wound up tapping more! i am not sure why the wrong spec is in the book but i basicly took what everyone said and made a educated guess on the torque this time!now i can check my valve clearances,thanks for everyones help and i can explain how i did it without removing the motor if anyone needs to know,thanks!

30+ years with these motors. That's the first time I've ever heard of anyone using locktite on cam tower bolts....

That's a band-aid, not a proper fix.

If you need locktite to keep the bolts form backing out, then the threads are shot or you're doing something wrong. It's just that simple.

Any explanation as to why a little drop of loctite is a bad thing???

I ACTUALLY FORGOT ABOUT THE LOCTITE, BUT I WAS ABLE TO GET 90 IN LBS OF TORQUE NO PROBLEM! DO YOU GUYS THINK THAT IS ENOUGH TORQUE? BECAUSE I CANT TRUST MY MANUAL ON THIS ONE!

jeffasaki wrote:

Any explanation as to why a little drop of loctite is a bad thing???

Absolutely you can have an explanation. Here it is.

You shouldn't ever need loctite on cam tower bolts. Can you do it? Sure you can. But the point is that's not a fix for loose cam tower bolt holes.

It bothers me when I see band-aids proposed as solutions, especially when it involves holding parts that are spinning at thousands of RPM inside a motor.

I think it was the same guy that proposed that solution that also said his cam towers had previously come loose and he spun a cam bearing. I've never seen that happen before either.

I've been doing this a long time. My advice is intended to point you in a direction that will keep your motor together and keep you safe. There's no cheap fix that's a viable alternative to a proper repair.

But the consensous of the crowd that's working on these old bikes seems to be one of how cheap can I do it and / or what's the quickest way around a real fix.

Saving money I can condone and sympathize with but when it comes to a band-aid that could potentialy lead to the desctruction of your motor, let alone the potential for a crash if it siezed up.....Well, that's something I feel pretty strongly about warning people to avoid.

very good points......

I was not implying Loctite as a fix to worn threads.I was suggesting putting a drop on to a properly repaired bolt hole,one that had already had a helicoil installed.I am quite aware that loctite is not a fix.I am also aware that these problematic 4 bolt cam bushing caps can use a little extra help.Certainly cant hurt.Peace

I have thought about this a lot, and I wonder why you can't install studs in the head and use nyloc nuts. If you loc-tited the studs in, and used re-taped to a slightly over stock size I think you would be fine. The only issue would be the locating dowels...

Is there any reason this could not be done? If the stock sized threads were used you could even keep the locating dowels.

Just seems better to me... but what do I know I want to run my 650 at 14,000 revs :laugh:

Not that it matters, but a properly torqued camcap doesn't need loctite. All that does is booger up the threads worse than they already are. When you think about it there is constant tension on the bolts from the cams rotating, so chances of the bolts ever unthreading themselves, vibrating loose ect is nil, so no need to overtorque or loctite. They never vibrate loose. Well one case was mentioned, but rather hard to explain how it happened. They actually seem to tighten over time. If you ever go to remove them they will be torqed down 50% more than what you originally tightened them to. One of them unexplained phenomenon.
The studs could work, but I think the problem is to have the studs long enough to enable installing the caps and working with cam lobes, the studs would have to be long. Long enough they would extend an inch above the nut after the cap was torqued. I doubt the valve cover would accomodate the studs.