This video wasn’t intentional, I though the chain looked a bit slack on the trusty GS so went to adjust it and lo and behold, the chain tensioner bolt on the brake side was siezed!
Over the last couple of days I’ve been spraying the bolt with penetrating fluid a few times a day in an attempt to free it up, no luck. Whacked it with heat from a hot air gun with no joy, so the sensible thing to do was apply brute force which obviously tore the bolt in half leaving me with a stud to extract.
I’ve seen the chain tensioner bolt repair kits on eBay like this;
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Chain-Adju...
But they’re no good on the F800 GS as the steel plate that inserts in the swingarm wouldn’t sit back flush.
So the next plan of attack was to drill it and use a stud extractor, problem is you need a really long drill bit to get to the stud which, from what I could find, are not available in a long enough length.
I come up with the idea of bodging together a ‘long’ drill bit by using hex shank, quick change drill bits with some hex extensions. Seemed to work ok, I had to steady the thing with a gloved hand while drilling but it worked.
These are the bits I bought from Screwfix, they are really quite good for the price!
www.screwfix.com/p/hex-shank-...
I got the hole drilled, give it some heat with the air gun and blow torch and tried the stud extractor, it was biting well but the extractor was starting to twist close to it shearing in the hole so give up on that and forged a new plan.
Helicoiling the hole was my last option, I drilled the stud right out with an 8.3mm drill bit taken from my Helicloil kit, inserted the coil and voila!
My kit was from eBay, the seller seems good, fast post, no problems!
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131Pcs-Hel...
If you can get to a stud with left hand drill bits then try them, they are excellent at getting seized things out!
I hope this video is of use to fellow Hermits, apologies from the iffy audio, I do have a mic on order and a tripod so I can use both hands when fettling!
Ash