Should I bother removing my headers to clean them?
 

Hi,

My headers are rusty on my XT600E but not rotten. I was planning on removing them, getting rid of the rust, painting them and refitting.

I've heard horror stories of the studs snapping like they are made of cheese.

Also, supposing all goes well I can refit the nuts with copper grease to hopefully stop them from seizing in the future.

Worth the risk?

Cheers

You're right. The studs are like cheese... You can try getting them nice and hot first and having a go.

Personally, I'd remove the pipes and ditch them. Get some stainless ones from Motad if you're planning on keeping the bike long term. If not, just leave them on and wait for them to rot. They will probably last a lot longer than you think unless they are seriously pitted.

If you do get the bolts out, get some new bolts (HEX head) and put them in with plenty of copper grease.


Painting header pipes is usually a waste of time. It takes LOADS AND LOADS of preparation to get the rust off and you will spend about £20 in high temp paint which will only wear off in a couple of years with the weather.

Thanks Ted for the info. You know what, they'll last until April when I go to Morocco, I'll have a go when it becomes absolutely necessary. Until then I'll use ACF-50 on them a regularly soak the nuts in penetrating oil.

Exactly... If it ain't broke don't fix it..

Once you go down that route of "If it ain't broke , fix it until it is" , things start getting expensive and stressful.

Trust me. I know the hard way. :innocent:

+1 ditch them pipes & get some stainless jobbies, like Ted said do it when the heads warm & plenty of penatrating fluid even days before you attempt to remove them.

Quite often the whole stud will come out with the nut welded on with rust, if that`s the case just buy new studs. Don`t go & re-use them even if you can get the nut off in a vice, just replace with new & smear some copperslip on as well for future.

Ive removed 20 odd in the last couple of years & on half of them the whole stud came out the head (nut seized on the stud) this is why its good to do it with a hot engine (head expands).

Mezo.

I will do it later in the year - I'm hoping a regular soaking in penetrating oil until then will help me.

Having said that, I've never had a stud break on any other bike, are the XT's particularly prone to this?

Yeah.. They are too small for the job. They are m6 if I remember correctly. They also get all the shit off the road on them.


ANYONE who owns an XT should remove them and copper grease them every year or two.

Is it worth heating each nut in turn before even trying to remove them, just to help that little bit?

It's worth getting a blow torch or some oxyacetylene and getting them AS HOT AS POSSIBLE.

If they are heavily corroded they WILL break unless you are REALLY lucky.

Seriously. I've had about four XT600E's in my workshop needing the heads removed to get the broken studs out. They were only a few years old and already breaking.

Fit Stainless Steel studs and you can get brass nuts which are double the height of normal ones and this combination does not corrode, a little cooper grease and you will be fine for years to come. Just remember to use a 6 sided socket as the brass is soft and you can round them off using a 12 sided socket.

Heating metal will expand that material that is heated (metal)

So I do not recommend heating of the stud.

All metal rusts some (ss) just take longer, so less service of studs. Copper grease no bad thing.

The main problems is the nut rusting onto the stud and this is one reason as to the use of brass nuts also the stud corroding into the cylinder.

I have had several times the problem of nuts rusting onto the stud but have always manged to free them with patiant coaxing. How

Ensure thread of stud is clear of rust where it is possible to access.

Same for the face of the hex on the nut.

Wind on to stud new nut and align with old nut.
This now gives you a greater surface area to which you can apply preasure to release offending nut (with well fitting socket or ring spanner)
Application of releasing fluid days prior to removal will/may help.

If the stud is not moving try a little pressure in reverse this can often crack the seal which is rust and alloy corrosion.

Heating the alloy in just the area around the stud is only going to crack your cylinder head. Maybe heat the engine then spray some plumbers freeze spray on the stud (only) This way one expands the metal on the head and reduces the stud within the thread of the cylinder.

Try some ACF50 to help protect from rust on your bike particularly whilst all this salt is being spread on the roads.

Anyway B/Rev if you were in the scouts you should be prepared.:innocent:

Good luck when the time comes.

Socks

Heating up a stud that is threaded into alloy to red heat and then letting it cool down before you try to remove it is one of the best ways to get them out of the alloy without damage .But only heat the nut or stud - not the alloy .
The steel expands and then contracts and loosens itself ,furthermore the oxidation and corrosion is burnt away or cracked and any penetrating oil that you apply will now get to work much faster .
Use a small flame like an oxy acetylene torch or one of those small propane plumbers torches .
Then use new studs when you replace the exhaust system.

If you want to get a nut off a stud or bolt that is well rusted on ,wire brush it well to remove as much rust as possible and then heat the nut red hot .Do it fast so that the stud [or bolt ] remains cooler .Then ease the nut off with a six sided socket or wrench . The heat will expand the nut and break the rust film that binds the nut to the stud .
Easy !

Thanks again for the info everyone, it's extremely helpful and appreciated.

It's half amusing really, almost as everyone is speaking in hushed tones about the story of removing their header pipes

Of course it's not really amusing as a cock up here can cause some serious ball ache. Yamaha made a great bike and to have something like this let it down is disappointing.

Anyway, I had a look at my nuts yesterday (ooer missus) and they don't look too rusty TBH, are they out to deceive me and snap the studs anyway?

There's part of my dying to have a go at undoing them but I'll kick myself if I snap a stud.

Hi there !

I wish you the best of luck in removing the studs/headers. Mine were in such a bad state I ended up taking off the cylinder head (on the advice of ted) Which was the best way for me. I think mine were an extreme example though, I was unable to even remove the headers there was so much crud built up around them and I ended up drilling out the studs after each one snapped. I too had used penetrating oil for weeks in the lead up to replacement, but to no avail. Got there in the end though and now have stainless studs, lashings of copper grease, shiny motad downpipes and a fine sense of accomplishment ! Bill

Mine came right of, after 60.000km ish, and 7 years of riding, including winther with ost of salt on the roads. Was almost kinda disappointed that it went so smoothly, after hearing all theese stories. I wd40'ed the nuts a couple of days up to the disassembly.

Soeh, not always a PITA job to do.

On my now sold dt175, I would remove the header each year, to paint it. It was crazy expensive, so totally worth my time (1-2hour) and a can of 10$ high temp paint.

Back to the first post -on protecting a rusting exhaust.

I have a few cans of the MASTER Corporation's Nutcracker formula "Professional Strength Super Penetrant " - it was was being remaindered at a country store/gas station for a few bucks so I bought the lot.

It works exceptionally well as a penetrator, and it is also is an excellent rust converter - it turns rust blue/gray almost like a gun blue, and it seems to prevent the rust reforming too.

Just keep it away from naked flames------.

If you end up changing the pipes and the bolts get snapped, I saw today. I have no idea how effective they are (has anyone tried it?), but it seems the tool. Welcome to www.aldn.com



http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...gL._AA300_.jpg

They look like adapted 'easy outs'... Great for large diameter bolts but VERY tricky to use on an M6. I wouldn't even try on XT studs.

It requires very precise drilling and those extractors are VERY brittle so you have to be VERY careful.

If you snap the extractor, you might as well just carve yourself a new head out of a block of aluminium because it will be easier than trying to remove the broken extractor.. :thumbdown:

I've removed snapped studs by welding a nut onto the bolt. The heat from the welder also got the stud REALLY hot which made it wind out pretty easily.

Ummm... thanks for the point, Ted. For a much easier thing (new and difficult for me yet) I was searching if "inverted thread screws" existed (whatever the right name) to use them after drilling and read that YES, there are, but the high risk was: they are extremely strong, so if you happen to break them, forget about drilling again, since the drill bit won't match their strength.

I guess that also applies to this tool...

Yup... They are a last resort. I have used them successfully on smaller bolts but then again I had the bolt clamped up in a big vice and was using a proper Pillar Drill. I wouldn't dream of trying to drill out the middle of an M6 exhaust stud with a hand drill.. Especially with the head still on the bike.

These things work well for PH /pozi / allen head screws that have been butchered, worn, rusted, etc - my mate does small engine / garden equipment repairs and he uses them a daily basis.

But I don't think they were ever meant for removing seized in studs.

I didnt even try to remove my broken studs myself, as I don't have a arc welder , I just paid up to have someone weld a nut on, before I tried something else and made mess of things.

Just my choice - but I will never know if it was a waste of $60- or $200- saved, but I liked the odds!

A welder toke you 60$ to weld 4 nuts? Are you kidding me? :O

$60- is about 1/2 an hour labour here in Oz - and is just about the minimum charge if you are running a business.

I don't have any problem with it, but then for all my working life I have been in a business that had to make money to survive.

I think the local Yam dealer quoted me $86- for four nuts and studs, so compared with that its not bad!

:offtopic:Well.. That's just way too much. Did they use 24-Karat gold rods? lol

I'm a novice self-employed Certified Professional GTAW, GMAW, SMAW, FCAW welder and still have a lot to learn but.

I made this front gate in sync plated steel (80x40mm and 40x40mm)+ 316L 1" diameter stainless steel hinges for a house for a costumer:

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/133/dsc03157i.th.jpg


I initially charged 350€ in labor (including consumables) to build it but he wanted to change a few things afterwards AND because he gave me wrong measures for the gate! So I added +50€...

Toke me about two weeks to complete it as I only had an angle grinder to cut the tubing (As some of you might know, stick welding on thin metal like this you better have a very good joint or you will surely blow some nasty holes).

Just one thing I didn't understand was why didn't he want me to grind the welds so it would have that smooth clean look...
Also, that gray-primer paint on that lower steel plate looks damn awful like that.. I warned him but that's how he wanted it.. "Costumer wants, Costumer gets it"



Vando beer

Vando,
Beemerboff is talking in Australian $ while you are using "Greek" Euro.
Therein lies the difference; half a world of separate economies.

60$ Oz is not so much because Australia has not incurred a monetary recession for the last few years.

I recommend that you raise your prices to obtain a more wealthy customer; offer high quality workmanship for a top dollar price.
It takes two to set a price and those who want quality will pay for it; this is not a criticism of your work, which none of us know, but a marketing technique that is used by all industries.

Vando, OZ is worlds away from Portugal (or Spain) when it comes to prices. It's a veeeery expensive country for us, due to a very strong currency and a great economic growth in recent years. I've seen 1 kg of bananas at more than 20AUD because there were floods in Queensland (and I saw people get them anyway!).

Hey, those doors look absolutely great! Good job. Just in case, only one comment that I imagine you know it well, but just in case: the doors will bend inwards due to their own weight, it always happen in the hinges, just slightly, but quite a lot in the center where the doors meet, so they have to be a little too high when you install them. I mean it especially because there are no poles on the sides and tightened cables towards the center to hold the doors.

Sooooo... those screw removers I posted were not such a great idea/discovery when it comes to the head pipes! :rolleyes2:

Last time I made a pair of metal gates was 50 years ago, back in Scotland when I worked for my dad.

We could get around GBP 45- for a set including wrought iron scroll in fills, but remember a top of the line Triumph or BSA was less than GBP 300- in those days.

If the gates were on metal posts and they did sag a little, for whatever reason, the bodge was to heat the inside of the base of the post with the oxy torch untill it expanded enough to raise the gate, then chuck a bucket of cold water on the usually red hot post, which locked in the expansion!

Well I appear to have won a set of Motad headers on eBay that have seen better days - plenty of surface rust but should clean up nice enough.

I'm going to have a go at a home made electrolysis set up to remove the rust - I'm far too lazy to be using elbow grease beer

or just clean em up best you can and coat with BBQ paint that way they will look like the originals.

$400 euro for those gates seem cheap. $400 euro for 2 weeks labour seems cheap too but then again you gotta do what you can theese days

I was gona ask the guy across the road to do a spot of welding for me, I thought 2 beers was a nice offer

Took mine 1 step further.....Heat-Wrapped & silicone'd 'em as well :thumbup1:.....
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...eatWrap002.jpg

Because of how thick the pipes are now, the re-assembly process is a bit different now......just need to hang the pipe before hanging the motor in the frame. :mchappy:

Not wishing to piss on your chips but heat wrap sucks up water like a sponge and rots your headers in half the time.

Not sure if the silicone will save them... Never seen it tried.

I double-coated them with the silicone spray.....seems pretty damn water-tight.:thumbup1:

Right, I tackled this today. I've been spraying the nuts with penetrating oil two or three times a week for the last three weeks-ish. I was out in the garden and thought I'd just get a socket on the nut and see if they'd budge. To my surprise the first one I had a go at undid really easily as did another two BUT...

The inside nut on the right hand side as you look at the bike didn't quite go to plan. I think (hope :censored:) that it has unwound the stud along with the nut. This is what I'm faced with.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...t/002ef7b6.jpg

It's 33mm long, does anyone know if I've been lucky and got the whole stud out?

No idea about the length
 

It looks like a complete stud from the pic that you have provided, but you don't show the end that is "internal"; does that look like it has sheared?
Doesn't seem so in your pic which shows a rounded end to the stud at that face, just like the rusted end.

Hope that helps.

On further inspection I have removed the whole stud.

I've got a new one on order - I did think about replacing the lot but "If it ain't broke etc" plus four new nuts to hold on the new exhaust.

What's the deal with assembly? Copper grease on the stud going into the head plus copper grease the nuts?

Here you go; no change from 3 weeks ago.
You have success so you are not quite believing it, yet??

Doh! :oops2: