Removing stripped screws from inaccessible places

[MarkW]

Stage one of the Honda Pan project done: getting all the fairings off. Every one was screwed on with non-matching bolts, several of which had stripped out heads and had to be drilled and extracted. I've also never seen so many spiders in one place in my life! There were at least three egg sacks behind every panel.

I managed to squeeze in a radiator flush and refill and an oil and filter change yesterday after work. The only way I could get the old filter to budge was to bang a screwdriver through it, at which point I also succeeded in fusing melted latex glove into melted flesh when I got a bit too intimate with the exhaust. Ouch!

Next I need to get at the air filter, but one of the screw heads is stripped out: predictably, it's the one between the front of the air box and the frame. I haven't got a drill bit small and long enough to get down there, so unless I can rig some kind of extension I'm stuck. If anyone has any suggestions for getting it out I'd be really grateful!

[Throttled]

I have run into that problem and it has been solved for me by people with dremmels who can cut a slot into the screw head to then use a flat headed screwdriver. Prior to doing that penetrating fluid and heat will help to loosen the screw/bolt. Or watch this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_6RUa0fH4U

[Tiggie]

has the head come off the screw or is it just rounded off? if the latter you might be able to get a longish flat head screwdriver and hammer it into the screw enough to give the screwdriver enough bite to turn the screw

[MarkW]

The head is completely rounded off, so there's nothing to get any bite on at all. I'll try the screwdriver and hammer approach and see if that does the trick.

I've got a small enough screw extractor, but there's no room to get a Dremmel in there to drill the pilot hole, even with a flexishaft.

[Mr Fro]

If the screw locates on the frame you could weld a nut on the top of the screw and whip it out that way.

Can you get to the back of it?

[MarkW]

I thought about that, and then wondered if gluing a bit of rod to the screw with some of that 'almost as strong as welding' metal adhesive would do the trick. It's only a few quid for a tube, so I may as well give it a go. Does anyone have any experience with it?

[oldie59]

Try hitting the side of the screw head with a screwdriver and hammer enough to make a dent (from top to bottom), then try putting the tip of the screwdriver into the dent and tapping it anticlockwise with a hammer. This sometime works when all else fails.

[MarkW]

Try hitting the side of the screw head with a screwdriver and hammer enough to make a dent (from top to bottom), then try putting the tip of the screwdriver into the dent and tapping it anticlockwise with a hammer. This sometime works when all else fails.

Top tip! I'll start with that and see how I go.

[Joe85]

Nothing to do with the topic, but...there's something about the words "egg sack" that would make me run a mile.

[Throttled]

I got some tough to shift screws off today. I used a hacksaw to cut across the screw head and then used one of these

http://img.banggood.com/images/upload/2014/10/149407%20(6).jpg

It bites into the rough edges and turns the screw.

[MarkW]

Well, we're getting there...

The dealer I bought the bike from told me they'd give it a service before I collected it, but I didn't believe them and paid little enough for it not to care. Sure enough the oil was sludge, the filter hadn't been changed in years, the plugs were shot, the radiator cap was seized shut and the air filter was both filthy and housed in a box that obviously hadn't been opened in a very, very long time. I've attended to all of that and also changed the final drive oil, which just leaves the brakes. I haven't got time for that before heading off to Basel a week on Saturday, so it'll have to wait until I get back. There's enough life left in them to get me there and back, I reckon.

Uncovering all the hopeless attempts at making it look like a younger bike has kept me entertained, like the suspiciously pristine forks (seals aren't usually sprayed silver) or the front of the sump, which sports a set of clumsy silver stripes where a paintbrush has been poked through the plastic grille under the radiator. I don't know why they bothered really, because a quick glance at the state of the metalwork under the seat told me I wasn't about to buy a minter.

Anyway, I've probably spent a little over £100 in parts, oil and antifreeze so far, and then there's a seat re-cover to factor in as well. I'll get that done next week. Assuming it survives the Swiss trip it'll get stripped again over winter and re-sprayed.

All good fun!

[RantMachine]

Blimey! If it's almost ready for Swiss trip then you're doing a lot better than I have with my BMW, I wouldn't trust it to get anywhere near that far and I've been fixing bits of it for the last year or so

[eastanglianbiker]

i would be in touch with the dealer telling them what you found upon checking the bike over and that as they said they had serviced it when they hadnt are they going to offer to give y ou the money back for t he parts you have now had to buy to do what they falsely claimed they had done

[MarkW]

Blimey! If it's almost ready for Swiss trip then you're doing a lot better than I have with my BMW, I wouldn't trust it to get anywhere near that far and I've been fixing bits of it for the last year or so

It's been a nice bit of evening tinkering to be honest, although so far it's only been things I've done on cars a million times. The next challenge is the brakes, which isn't something I've ever tackled before. I might try to do a fluid change before I go, although it seems to have some linked-brake arrangement that is supposed to be a bit of a pain to bleed. I'll investigate further tomorrow, but I'm leaving the pads and rotors until I get back.

Taking it to Basel might seem a bit daft (especially since I have a bike in the garage that would definitely make it there and back) but it'll be fun, and part of me thinks that if it's done 100,000 miles already then another 1,500 shouldn't be a problem. It sounds OK, and the ride back from Doncaster didn't give any cause for concern. Assuming it doesn't disintegrate beneath me on the motorway the worst that can happen is that I don't make it to the conference. Given that I've been threatening to stop going for the last few years, that might not be such a bad thing!