
Tales From The Edge
This is an occasional series where I go to the edge of North Bucks and show you what I've found.
I often use my early 80’s Yamaha motorcycle to travel around the North Bucks Wanderer area. I can park in places where a car could never fit, I can turn it around in the narrowest of roads if I see something interesting, and it’s fun to ride.
But there’s been a problem; an oil leak. The right side of the bike and one boot were getting covered in engine oil. So not long ago I stripped down the engine, to replace the faulty seal.
The cylinder head had to be removed, and while it was off I took it to Headline Engineering, who are based in an old farmyard on the edge of Bucks, not far from Woburn Sands on the Cranfield Road.
I had snapped an exhaust stud off a few years ago, and when I tried to fix it back then I just made things worse; I snapped the drill bit off in the hole and there it was, stuck.
But it was no problem to Headline. Sean (he’s in the photo) told me that they used an air grinder to remove what was left of the drill bit, installed a Time-Sert, then put a shiny new stud in the threaded hole. You can see it in the photo; it’s on the left hand end of the cylinder head, the only shiny one.
Time-Serts are used for repairing badly damaged bolt threads in metal, and the result is a strong repair that you can rely on. I’m not going to go into the details here, but if you are interested, the makers Wurth have a video to show you how it’s done.
If you want to try these thread repairs for yourself, the Time-Sert kits can be found on Amazon.
I was please with the repair, and replaced the cylinder head on the bike. The last job to do was to replace the exhaust. At last, the exhaust would be properly fixed! I was a happy man, right up to the moment when another stud, on the opposite side of the head, snapped off...
But I’ve learned my lesson now. I’m not going to try repairing this one myself.