• 4 Stroke Husqvarna Motorcycles Made In Italy - About 1989 to 2014
     TE = 4st Enduro & TC = 4st Cross

  • Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

TE449 valve cover bolt removal

M

Marc Noel

Husqvarna
AA Class
Greetings:

In preparation to remove my valve cover for breather drilling, I tried loosening the mounting bolts, and almost stripped one hex head because of the wrench not being fully set. Anyway, I started thinking about how to ensure maximum grip on the bolt heads, especially considering they are shallow with a built-in washer. It turns out that, although they are 8 mm, a 5/16" wrench/socket fits tighter, as it is 7.9375 mm. If you can get a six-point wrench/socket, even better. HOWEVER, sockets and wrenches both have one design element wherein they are slightly chamfered at the openings, which doesn't actually contact the bolt head flats. I thought about it, and decided to take a 5/16" six-point deep socket, then trim the end square, so that the six points are right at the end of the socket. Next, because of clearance issues for wrench handles, I cut off the square drive end of the socket, so now it is a shorter socket, with a hex hole all the way through. The last thing to do is take an 8 mm hex key, and cut off a short, straight section, then put the socket on the bolt, and the key segment in the other end of the socket. You then use a 5/16" box wrench on the key end. That way, you get maximum grip, and maximum clearance.
 
I used a regular wrench on mine and didn't have a problem. I just made sure to push down with my free hand where the bolt was to make sure it was a little secure.
 
MFGamesta said:
I used a regular wrench on mine and didn't have a problem. I just made sure to push down with my free hand where the bolt was to make sure it was a little secure.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply.

That's great you were able to access it so readily, but some seem to have configurations that make it impossible to securely position a wrench. In my case, the coil retaining bolt is in such a place that a socket won't fit with either an extension or a u-joint, and a regular wrench won't clear the plastic flange surrounding it. I cut through the flange wall with a Leatherman-style saw, then nibbled away at the flange with the needle-nose pliers. A regular wrench then fit properly, and I was able to break the bolt free.

One of the main contributing problems is that it seems that many fasteners are either over-tightened at the factory, or else corrosion locked them in to a certain extent, because there's no way in Hell these things have been tightened to 6 lbs.-ft. of torque (for example). If we combine initial over-tightening/corroding, shallow bolt/nut faces, and inaccessibility, we get a recipe for rounding, and then what do we do? I am unwilling to TRY it, then have it round, and now I can't get it off.

Currently, I am getting ready for another oil change, but have found (like some others) that metric/Imperial sockets are either too tight or too loose. I don't want to "pound" a 21mm socket onto the filter cap, and risk damaging something elsewhere because of the shockwaves. I am going to try using some unneeded feeler gauge shims on too-big sockets, or else enlarge the too-small sockets with a grinding bit in a rotary tool. I haven't decided yet.
 
It sound like you need a better set of sockets.

BTW, I used a ratcheting wrench (not a socket) to get my valve cover off. Worked fine. Yours must have been way over tight. Are you the original owner?
 
Cosmokenney said:
It sound like you need a better set of sockets.

BTW, I used a ratcheting wrench (not a socket) to get my valve cover off. Worked fine. Yours must have been way over tight. Are you the original owner?
Click to expand...

Yes, I'm the original owner.

I guess it depends on each individual's situation, as evidenced by responses here, and posts elsewhere.
 
ghte said:
I have found the oil filter cover to be 22mm by the way
Click to expand...

Other posts have commented about a 22 being too big, and a 21 being too small. Luckily for me, I only need to get it off, as I will be replacing it with a magnetic Zip-Ty cover that has a 3/8" square hole in the center for a ratchet.
 
Marc Noel said:
Thanks for your reply.

That's great you were able to access it so readily, but some seem to have configurations that make it impossible to securely position a wrench. In my case, the coil retaining bolt is in such a place that a socket won't fit with either an extension or a u-joint, and a regular wrench won't clear the plastic flange surrounding it. I cut through the flange wall with a Leatherman-style saw, then nibbled away at the flange with the needle-nose pliers. A regular wrench then fit properly, and I was able to break the bolt free.

One of the main contributing problems is that it seems that many fasteners are either over-tightened at the factory, or else corrosion locked them in to a certain extent, because there's no way in Hell these things have been tightened to 6 lbs.-ft. of torque (for example). If we combine initial over-tightening/corroding, shallow bolt/nut faces, and inaccessibility, we get a recipe for rounding, and then what do we do? I am unwilling to TRY it, then have it round, and now I can't get it off.

Currently, I am getting ready for another oil change, but have found (like some others) that metric/Imperial sockets are either too tight or too loose. I don't want to "pound" a 21mm socket onto the filter cap, and risk damaging something elsewhere because of the shockwaves. I am going to try using some unneeded feeler gauge shims on too-big sockets, or else enlarge the too-small sockets with a grinding bit in a rotary tool. I haven't decided yet.
Click to expand...
The key to not stripping off the oil drain caps and oil filter cover is to not over tighten them when installing.
The caps all seal by o-ring seals, they will seal when done up by hand and only need a nip more force to stop them coming loose.

I now have 260hrs on my engine with oil changes every 5 hrs....
All original oil drain and filter caps.
Another good point is to use six point sockets and/or a brand that uses the 'flank drive' system.
 
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