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Nutz - Smallest wrench I own, wrong time of year, need mechanical advice

drubery

Western NY Rider
First, my heart goes out to those in Boston..!

Now to my very minor problem, at least in the grand scheme of life. Well this could have happened on the road, so I am fortunate it did not. Right clip on seemed loose on my 2007 K1200GT and I thought it was the bolt that goes into the handlebar, it has a rubber grommet it goes through and helps prevent the controls from rotating. It screws right into the forged aluminum handlebar. Yes, I snapped it right off with the smallest wrench I own. :banghead

I have big white zip tie on there at the moment and I am weighing whether or not I should ride it like this the 5 miles to the dealer? I am also wondering how they are going to remove what is left. Am I sunk and looking at buying a new handlebar? ($665!)

Any words of encouragement at an extremely busy time of year for our dealers would be appreciated. Unfortunately so would blatant honesty.

Thanks,

-Dennis

nutz.jpg
 
If you remove the stuff over the bolt, can you get purchase on it with vice grips? I've found that very tight vice grips can often remove a broken bolt. If not, they will probably drill it & use an ez-out.

I hope you were tightening when it broke. I would put some penetrant on it to ease removal just in case there is some corrosion in there.

Doesn't look like that is anything mission critical, so I would probably ride it 5 miles.

If the dealer can't do it, I would try a machine shop. They deal with that sort of thing on a regular basis.
 
Thanks guys.. An easy-out will have to be the call as no portion protruding underneath the grommet to get purchase. Still not sure on the ride, I am sure I will have to leave it for a long time as they are racked up over there! I am lucky one of the guys is really well known in motorcycle circles around here, so if it can be removed with an easy-out he might have the touch. Just not sure if it's a look at it when I bring it in and a shake of the head and I'll knock this out in 5 minutes deal or I am without the bike for two weeks. Jonesing up here in the great white north!
 
An easyout should work fine, just be very careful. Make sure you drill the hole as centered as possible, you may need to file the end of the broken bolt flat to get the drill to not wander. Make a good center punch mark to ensure the drill starts in the correct spot, then drill with a very small bit first, going to the correct size for the easyout with a second drill (you may be able to drill it with the proper size firts for a small size easyout/bolt). Once you have the hole, try the easyout carefully, DO NOT FORCE IT if the bolt does not move easily. If you break either a drill bit or the easyout in the bolt, you may well end up having to replace the bar before you can get any of it out. I would expect though that once drilled, it will come out easily with little force as you likely twisted it off due to excess tightening which would mean the threaded part is not bottomed out or siezed in. If it is bottomed or siezed, then it may not want to come out at all, at which point you may have to drill it out completly and have a thread repair insert put in. In any case, there should be no reason for having to replace the bars.

Good luck, take your time and it should be fine.
 
M5x10

So there are two identical bolts one on the right and one on the left which basically prevent your controls from rotating and also from sliding out. The one on the right is the one I snapped off just below the surface. Going to have to trailer the bike to the shop and have them remove the controls. Then I'll have to pick up the bars and take them to a machinist and cross my fingers, but my gut tells me they'll end up drilling it out and putting an M5x10 plug in. If money were no object I would trade it in on a new GT, still doing this: :banghead
 
FWIW, if I had to do this myself I'd just drill the whole thing out before messing with an easy out. Those things are extremely brittle and snap off readily with little force and no warning- especially in smaller sizes. They're fine on larger stuff where you can get heat on stuck bolts but more likely to just cause trouble on small stuff....

Stainless bolts don't drill easily- a good sharp set of proper alloy is needed...
 
Update

I figured out a way to get two really big zip ties to hold the controls in and prevent it from rotating and got the bike to the dealer. Then I remembered a company I did IT Support for awhile ago that has a huge machine shop including EDM. I gave a friend there a call and told him about my issue. He said when I get the bars to bring them in, they can do this to accuracy of 100,000 ths and will do it while I wait. So just waiting on BMW to remove the bars. I was tempted to take that task on myself, but I'm a computer geek and just don't have any business messing with this stuff.
 
EDM is certainly the best way to do it- by far.

If you happen to have easy access to getting to your buddies EDM setup- by all means do so...

Drilling is possible but a true pita by comparison...(I recently had a small stainless screw that had galled and corroded into the aluminum alloy fork threads break off on a K1200GT- did the "drill it out fix" in my garage caused I needed it done "now"- was slow and not fun but works- also takes real care to not accidentally drill out the softer aluminum).
 
<Banging Head>

I will not f with stuff on my bike
I will not f with stuff on my bike
I will not f with stuff on my bike

Well it could have been better and it could have been a hell of a lot worse, Machinist was able to spin the bolt right out with a reverse drill bit and a drill press. It may also have been helpful he was German. Thanks Ray! (Cost = 2 Dozen Bagels and some cream cheese. Savings $665 forged aluminum handle bars)

BMW total labor to remove all controls and put them all back on when the bars were returned. They were very thorough (Had I known how thorough I would have had them replace the quick disconnects on the fuel tank), five hours of labor and a few zip ties plus one replacement bolt. I must say the did a very tidy job and with controls that is how it should be, so no complaint here. (Labor $80/hour or $400)

I'll stick to engineering networks and next time I think I have something lose and my torque wrench is too big I'll swing by the shop! Lesson learned, that is until next time :doh
:drink :drink :drink

Had my Interacts replaced with Road Pilot 2s on the way home $383. New sneakers! :dance

Thanks guys for the tips!

-Dennis
 
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