Intake Boots, how to remove?

Ok here's the deal. My intake boots are dryrotted and cracked. I bought new ones and plan on replacing them. I just took my carbs off the bike for a good cleaning and rebuild.

I know that people have had problems with the bolts braking.

Is there any suggestions you guys can give me before I take a wrench to them?

What kind of penetrating oil will be best? I like PB blaster but if there is a better one I would like to know.

Would heat help in the removal?

I have already shot them once with the PB Blaster, and plan on continuing to every day until I get my carbs finished. Im guessing the longer I let the penetrating fluid work on the bolts the better off I will be.

 

Those bolts aren't torqued very tight. When I did mine I found that the ones that weren't stuck broke loose with a 4" hex key without digging into the fingers. Those also looked clean when they came out.

There were a couple that didn't want to come easily with the 4" key. I used heat to loosen them. They were visibly corroded when they came out.

Remember to wire brush them good and treat with anti-sieze when you reassamble.

 

You venture where other's fear to tread.
When you have too; that's what you have to do. Call NO-Joy and jump-in.
Hope for none-stuck and see how far you get.
If you find a stuck-bad one ... the odds are against you; without taking-off the Head.


With the Head OFF .. you can apply some Impact that might remove the stuck Cap Screw.

With it OFF, you get a shot at laying a tool right on the Cap and Striking the Head on the Cap Screw. A few heavy taps on the Cap might help to loosen-up its death grip.

After a few well-placed, Ball-Peen assisted, jolts to that stuck fastener; the Cap Screw might surrender to some precisely applied Impact shots using a Hand Impact Tool.

 

Thanks for the replies, I am going to replace the bolts once I get them out. I was going to use New stainless steel ones.

Has anybody had any problems with stainless steel and alluminum?

 

I pulled mine with no issues at all, after reading on here though, I guess I was one of the lucky ones. I replaced mine with new stainless with a coating of Loctite 1600 degree anti seize. You should have no ill effects on installing stainless, just don't forget anti seize!

 

Anti-seize is the saving grace for fasteners, use it and you will be happier next time you have to go in.

 

I highly recommend Kano AeroKroil as penetrating oil. Soak the bolts overnight before removing. Heat the surrounding cylinder head area using a heat gun (NOT a propane torch....gasoline WILL burn and so will the Kroil) and use a breaker bar with allen socket instead of a 90 degree allen wrench. (Cheap steel allen wrenches tend to strip out, rounding the inside of the hex) Apply pressure evenly and steadily. They should break free with little resistance.
As mentioned, use a good HIGH TEMP anti-sieze when reinstalling and you should have no further problems. Good luck!

 

Steady and even pressure with a Breaker Bar, on those stuck Cap Screws, is going to snap-'em right off.

They LOVE being twisted.
They fake-it like they're really moving for you!

Then, ... Plink! Broke.

If it does not surrender to a modest amount of loosening torque ... and, "Break Loose" ... then, you have to get some SHORT, Fast, Hard, loosening Impact on it.

Otherwise ... the soft steel starts to Chubby-Checker until it takes a break.

Don't play that ... "Just-a-Little-bit, little-bit, little-bit more."

That's a One-Way Ticket to ... Pull-off the Head and start drilling!

 

I hate it when they do that! One of my starter bolts pulled that trick.

Rick is right - if you can't get it loose with that short allen wrench it aint gonna loosen.

You can also get the wrench on there and use a couple end wrenches to do a drum roll on the end of the allen wrench - just might vibrate it loose.

I loosened my stuck ones with the smallest flame I could get on a #3 welding tip. Found that the aluminum pulls the heat away fast enough that softening wasn't an issue (I kept about 2x the lenght of the blue part of the flame off the surface). Of course the tank and carbs were off and I was in a well ventilated area.

I'm always a bit reluctant to post this trick because someday someone will use too much heat and burn a boss right off his engine.

 

My recommendation for heating-up Intake Manifold Cap Screws and Brass Pilot Mixture Screws is "Designer Butane"

I have a few of those "Trigger Operated B-B-Q Starters"
I'm pretty-good with the "Duct Tape Bic Trick"

My favorite heater is the "Booster Rocket Butane Lighter's" they sell in "Head Shops" ... although, I know 'Head Shop' is a '70's thing.

Far out.

 

I have removed the intakes from all four of my bikes on several occaisions and never broke a single bolt. Same with exhaust studs. I have had some exhaust studs and nuts so rusty that the stud has unscrewed from the head.

Never a problem.

My trick???

Ride it.

Then leave it idling for 5 minutes while you get your tools out.
Turn it off and rip those carbs out and get to the boots while the engine is still warm. No coffee breaks and piss your pants if you have to. The hotter the engine the easier they are to get out.

Gotta be seriously careful on the exhaust side with this method.

All to do with the different heating and cooling between alloy and steel.

Most bikes that are ridden regularly will have little trouble with broken bolts. It's the ones that have sat for a year that give the headaches.


Not sure I would replace with stainless though. Alloy and stainless are not the best regarding compatability.

Definate on the anti seize during replacement though.

 

Im still adding penitrating oil to them at the moment, PB blaster. Im am in the middle of putting my carbs back together. Its taking me a few days because I can only work on them for about an hour a day, and didnt work on them at all yesterday. I figured that it wouldnt matter letting the little dirty parts sit in the carb cleaner a little longer. Im hoping to work on them this weekend and get them back together. Then I will tackle the Intake boots. With my fingers crossed and the tips you guys gave me, Im sure I wont have any problems.

The bike has been run. I run it all the time so it doesnt sit for very long. I ran it for a week before I started this project so Im hoping that the heat and cool effect on them studs broke em loose for me.

We will see.

Added Note:

The carbs inside seamed to be very clean, all the screws and jets came out with no probems. Im hoping the intake studs do the same. :wink:

 

Its alive!!!!!

Well I got the carbs put back together today, and decided to tackle the intake boots. It wasnt a very big deal, except...

The previous owner must have had them off before, there was no gasket behind them, they used a liquid gasket, which from the looks of things wasnt sealing anything, and....

They broke off one of the studs, the reason I know that I didint to it, the stud that came out wasnt broke, it was just a shorter stud. The old stud broke off inside. There was enough treads left for about 2 turns on the short stud.

I decided that since the stud tightened up pretty well I would just leave it go and run it.

I put my new intake boots on, with new bolts and gaskets.

I put the carbs on the bike and started it up, the only addjustments that I did was back the adjusting screw's (sorry dont know what they are called) out 3 truns like suggested by this group.

When I started up the bike it just sat there and idled. It never did that before. Im so happy.

When I get my colortune, I will give it the fine tuning it deserves.

But for now, the bike runs great so I dont think there is much addustment needed.

Thanks to everybody on this list for there great input and experiance, I dont think I would have attempted this job without it.

 

Glad to hear your enjoying the fruits of your efforts. Now about that short stud. Bad form running two threads. It will bite you down the road when it falls out 'cause the threads in the head have been over stressed and stretched out. I highly recommend you fix it right at first opportunity.

 

I keep hearing about "colortune". What is it? And how do you do it?

 

It is a glass-topped spark plug that allows you to view the combustion process, thus giving the ability to tune the air/fuel mixture to optimal conditions for the cylinder being observed.
Additional reading can be found using the search function on the Main Menu located on the left side of the page. Keyword would be "colortune".

 

ColorTune is a GREAT Tool. Essentially, a Spark Plug with a transparent "Window" allowing you to see the combustion explosions.

As the Air/Fuel Mixture is adjusted; the actual COLOR of the combustion is observed through the plug. As the mixture is adjusted from Lean to Rich, the color of the combustion mixture changes from Yellow to Yellow-Orange ... eventually to a nicely balanced power mixture, which looks BLUE.

The guesswork of tweaking the Pilot Mixture Screws for best Idle Mix and off-idle performance is solved ... ColorTune allows you to actually see the right settings.

 

Its not a cheap tool, if you buy it new your looking at $55-$70 US Dollars.

I have been looking on ebay trying to get a used one, they for for $35-$50 US Dollars plus shipping. Sometimes more.

But from what I hear they are a great tool and worth having in your inventory. Especally if you have a multi carb motorcycle like ours. Hell I even heard sombody colortune there snowblower to make it run better.

 

I had to remove my intake boots today and credit this thread with leading me to doing it without snapping anything. I don't know exactly how stuck they were, and I was able to remove one when I started this project before I read how difficult they can be...but here's what I did:

With the engine in the frame, and after trying to get it to run right but facing a lean condition from a vacuum leak earlier in the day, I sprayed some PB Blaster all around the bolts and intake mating surface (a couple of shop rags underneath help keep the rest of the engine clean). I then applied heat by way of the heat gun, then more PB Blaster.

I was going to come back to it in a day or so, but got impatient (warning, result of impatience may vary) and decided to remove the one that I removed before. Using the 90 degree allen key, I used a hammer to impact the key into the bolt head and CCW, and the bolts loosened right up. Decided to move on to the others in this fashion and got the same result . Except for #2, that one was finger tight .

Anyway, result may vary, but I thought I'd share that an allen key can act like an impact driver.