[MDairheads] Exhaust Port Thread Success and Stirring the Pot

[Will Andalora]

Great news Kevin!

I was thinking this afternoon about stirring the pot and left it alone, but here goes...

It's personally beyond me why anyone would want to 'out-engineer' the engineers who gave us the manufacturer specifications for tire and tube use.  I simply do whatever has been recommended and don't think beyond that.

I haven't spent as much time on motorcycles as a lot of people, but I probably have a solid 100,000 miles on bikes with 85 percent of that on airheads.  In all that time I have only had to repair one flat tire on my bike.  I also repaired one on Eric's bike during the first Rolling Rally.  It just didn't seem like that big of a deal to me to pull the wheel break the bead and slip in a tube.  Especially for the averages of how often it has happened to me.

What can be done and what should be done can be endlessly debated, but I don't think one can go wrong following BMW's recommendation for tubes in tires on rims that were designed to be used with tubes.

I'll probably get three flat tires next weekend at the Last Days of Summer Rally... Lucky for me I carry spare tubes with me, a tire patch kit, cylinder air pump, and am hard-headed enough to pull the wheel and bust a few knuckles as evidenced by my 2017 'On the Road' seminar at Supertech...

All the Best,

Will
________________________________
From: MDAirheads <mdairheads-bounces+will_andalora=hotmail.com at casano.com> on behalf of Kevin Fahey via MDAirheads <mdairheads at casano.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2018 7:19 PM
To: Maryland Airheads
Subject: [MDairheads] Exhaust Port Thread Success

Took a shot at the exhaust port threads this evening.  Thread file did the trick quite nicely.  Did get my hands on a 52mm x 2.00 die.  As some suggested, that thing is very aggressive with regard to how much metal it takes off and how quickly into the threading process it starts taking it.  Tried the die after some initial thread file work.  Gave it up and went back to the file.  Threads were more damaged that I initially thought.  Found one I missed on the underside of the port that was in real rough shape.

Die was a relatively inexpensive one from China.  There are very expensive ones available from Europe.  Don't know if a European one would be any less drastic in terms of metal removal.  So if anybody ever has a need for a 52mm x 2.00 die, you know where one can be found.

Exhaust nut now can be hand tightened all the way except for the last thread or so at which point I have to use the wrench to snug it up.  Not as silky smooth as the undamaged side but hey.

Thanks again for all the advice and suggestions.  Hope I can stir up the pot again soon!

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