[Mongoose]

I went to do an oil change today while I was getting ready to store my bike for winter and ran into a rather horrific incident. Drained the oil for about 10 min (until it stopped dripping), removed the filter cover, tossed the old filter and gasket, put the drain plug back in with new washer, put in new oil filter, spring and gasket and put the cover back on.... then things went to hell. Before adding my oil i decided to torque up all the bolts to manual spec. Drain plug to 18 ft-lbs and filter cover to 9 ft-lbs.... as specified.... again... by the manual. This was a mistake.... but not on my part. The drain plug torque was perfect.... but I cant say the same for the filter cover torque. Apon applying the specified torque to the cover bolts a bolt snapped off in the hole. My blood went cold.... so my first instinct was to remove the other bolts. So now I have 1 snapped off bolt and 3 others that had stretched out and were ready to snap (thankfully they did not). Point of this thread.... 9 ft-lbs is way too much! I did as the manual said and it failed me. So i had to run out and buy a bolt extractor... drill out the snapped bolt, tap in the extractor and slowly work the snapped bolt out of the crankcase cover. Also had to buy 4 new bolts. Tried again but this time only tighten by hand with a handle driver. No leaks, no problems. If your going to do your own oil... DO NOT TORQUE TO 9 FT-LBS. Hand tight is plenty!

 

[Aufitt]

Not many torque wrenches are accurate at that setting.. certainly not any 1/2" drive ones.

 

[Macca]

Sure it didnt say Inch pound and not ft pounds?

 

[CBR250R]

Mongoose - for the small bolts I just tighten them with a mini-socket set - and tighten them until they are snug. Never had a problem. I sometimes add a bit of Locktite Blue. Several forum members on the WR250R forum I frequent, experienced the exact same issue as you with the filter cover - snapping bolts by following the Yamaha owner's manual torque recommendations. I feel your pain.

Mike

 

[Nortley]

I ran into a metric-inch conversion error in my BMW manual, fortunately the error was so ridiculous that I spotted it, but it would have had a valve adjusted to about .060". Moral - if the machine is of metric origin, use the metric specs even if inch specs are added. That said, I haven't looked this bolt up and checked the conversion.

 

[llory]

Mongoose - I'm sorry that you ran into this issue but thanks for reporting it. I plan on changing the oil to full synthetic at 1500 miles (which I'm coming up on) and I will definitely keep this in mind.

 

[Street Sniper]

too late mongoose...
had to learn this lesson the hard way.no torque wrench.

i also have no leaks or problems ... hand tight IS plenty

great post for every one else who is thinking about changing their own filter

 

[Mongoose]

Not many torque wrenches are accurate at that setting.. certainly not any 1/2" drive ones.

I used a VERY good quality $95.00 inch-lb torque wrench (Gearwrench brand model 85050 1/4" drive; Accurate within +/-3 Percent in upper 80-Percent range) that goes pretty low (30-200 inch lbs) and was set to 108 inch lbs (9 ft-lbs). Way too tight. snapped before I even got the wrench to click.... and I'm no noob to tools

 

[Mongoose]

Sure it didnt say Inch pound and not ft pounds?

This was the 1st thing I checked to make sure it was not me just being dumb... the manual that came with the bike definitely says 9 ft-lbs. Check for yourself bro.... it's ridiculous

 

[Rick]

I used a VERY good quality $95.00 inch-lb torque wrench (Gearwrench brand model 85050 1/4" drive; Accurate within +/-3 Percent in upper 80-Percent range) that goes pretty low (30-200 inch lbs) and was set to 108 inch lbs (9 ft-lbs). Way too tight. snapped before I even got the wrench to click.... and I'm no noob to tools

9ft-lbs is a very low setting. No way a good bolt should snap with 9lbs force on a one foot wrench. I'm guessing defective bolt.

 

[stumps]

Thanks for the post Mongoose. Will be verrry careful when I do mine.

 

[Azul the Cat]

This was the 1st thing I checked to make sure it was not me just being dumb... the manual that came with the bike definitely says 9 ft-lbs. Check for yourself bro.... it's ridiculous

Which manual are you looking at? I'm looking in the service manual now and there are no torque specs for the filter cover. It just says to install and tighten bolts securely.

I'm not saying you did something wrong, I'm just wondering why there would be conflicting info out there.

 

[Mongoose]

9ft-lbs is a very low setting. No way a good bolt should snap with 9lbs force on a one foot wrench. I'm guessing defective bolt.

The one bolt snapped... the other 3 had stretched out and were ready to snap. They are a very soft metal and I was surprised they used them. Not like white metal where they are brittle.... but just very soft.

 

[Mongoose]

Which manual are you looking at? I'm looking in the service manual now and there are no torque specs for the filter cover. It just says to install and tighten bolts securely.

I'm not saying you did something wrong, I'm just wondering why there would be conflicting info out there.

For simple stuff I normally just use the manual that came with the bike under it's seat. For bigger jobs I use the Helm Inc. manual.... and ya.... I noticed that too. I am thinking Helm Inc caught on to this issue and decided not to specify a torque setting. I also noticed that last night while I was comparing both manuals.... you know... to see maybe if one had said inch-lbs and the other foot-lbs.

 

[jkv357]

Sounds like you did everything right, that sucks that the torque spec would be far enough off to snap the bolt.

For those that have "blind faith" in anything Honda says ("they must know what they are doing - they built it...") - sometimes they screw-up. Either the published spec was wrong or the bolts are junk. Either way, there's a problem somewhere...

There are numerous specs and suggestions printed in owner's manuals that are questionable IMO.


Jay

 

[Mongoose]

Sounds like you did everything right, that sucks that the torque spec would be far off to snap the bolt.

For those that have "blind faith" in anything Honda says ("they must know what they are doing - they built it...") - sometimes they screw-up. Either the published spec was wrong or the bolts are junk. Either way, there's a problem somewhere...

There are numerous specs and suggestions printed in owner's manuals that are questionable IMO.


Jay

I know. Another thing I questioned was using the 10w-30 weight oil. Most bikes take 10w-40 don't they?

 

[jkv357]

I know. Another thing I questioned was using the 10w-30 weight oil. Most bikes take 10w-40 don't they?

Most do use 40 grade oil.

If indeed there is a "top-end rattle", I would at least try going to a 40 grade to see if it changed anything.

Because of the small amount of oil involved, I'd be using a synthetic 10W-40 or 5W-40 like Rotella T6 - or better yet a Motul Ester-based. But that's just me.


Jay

 

[llory]

Sure it didnt say Inch pound and not ft pounds?

9 inch pounds is what finger tight at best? lol I think that would be silly

 

[the_lucky_owl]

Another thing I questioned was using the 10w-30 weight oil. Most bikes take 10w-40 don't they?

10w-40 is fine. I've used it for the past nearly 16,000 miles on the CBR with no issues.

As far as the filter bolts go I've just gone with the old fashioned hand tight and a quarter turn with no issues.
It may have been the hard road trip miles I've put on mine but I ended up having to replace the oil filter gasket because it started leaking (I think they recommend replacing that gasket at the first service anyways dont they?)

Sorry to hear about the snapped bolt I've been lucky enough in my riding career to have never done that (knocks on wood)

 

[Allyson]

A friend helped me with my first oil change. He used an inch pound torque because
then you are in it's most accurate range (yes, you have to do some math to set it properly).

As Aufitt said 'Not many torque wrenches are accurate at that setting' - the the inch pound gets you to that place. Also, he has Snap-On torque wrenches.