TOPIC:

Just fixed my oil leak, gas leak, headlight, gauges, coil voltage, and tightened my chain. Thought I'd throw in a new set of plugs to make it run perfect. Ran like a dream!

10 miles down the road, plug #1 blows out of the head!

won't keep a plug in now, don't know what to do exactly, would prefer a good solution, like a timesert, but I really want to keep riding.

I have a kz1100 donor bike if I need a new head, but the I'd like to keep the motor together until the winter.

Does anyone know of a really good machine shop in the nashville area that will do a timesert without having to pull the motor out of the bike?

Yessssss, I have used a helicoil insert kit specifically for spark plugs on cars with Al heads successfully. I put heavy grease on the tap to catch the shavings and used a vaccum cleaner with a tube taped to it to vaccum inside the cylinder just for extra peace of mind.

Exitpupil wrote:

Yessssss, I have used a helicoil insert kit specifically for spark plugs on cars with Al heads successfully. I put heavy grease on the tap to catch the shavings and used a vaccum cleaner with a tube taped to it to vaccum inside the cylinder just for extra peace of mind.

Good advice. I would add that after vaccuming, leave that spark plug out and start and run the bike for a few seconds. That way -if- there is a "straggler" piece of shaving it should either blow out the exhaust port or the spark plug hole.

Is your shop near nashville?

this is an easy and cheap job to do yourself even if you're not Johnny engine guy....you should be able to buy a kit for under $50 and if you choose to do it yourself, remove the head and do it, why risk getting F.O. in your valve train.

would it be a good idea to have the EX valve open and blow air through it into the combustion chamber (and out the plug hole) while its being done? (head on motor)