Woohoo! Installed my Krieger ccts today. All was going well till I broke a valve cover bolt while reinstalling it. Thank goodness the local Honda shop had 2 of them in stock. Everything is back together now with fresh oil and filter as well. It is now running (sounding) better than it has as long as I've owned it. Rain moved out just in time to take it out for a test ride. Felt so good to be back on it after a month long deployment and down with a bad front cct. Caught it before any damage was done thanks to the info on this site. Props to everyone!

 

Those bolts snap way too easily. Check the with a torque wrench if you have one, they should be around 10

 

The Honda manual I have says 7 ft lbs. The bolt showed signs of being partially broken. Thats problably the only way it broke with a torque wrench set to 7

 

I broke a good one at 8lbs, and I also had a cracked one when I pulled it out. It's not fun drilling for an easy out with an open head haha. They really only need to be tight enough for the rubber gasket to make a seal, which isn't much more than hand tight.

 

I don't know about the VTR, but a lot of the Hondas and others don't even tighten down on the gasket, they just squeeze them. The bolts or the spacers in the covers bottom out and tightne up either on the step flange of the bolt or spacer. No matter how tight you tighten the bolts the gasket squeeze is only as tight as the spacing allows. Thus it is a very good idea to use a torque wrench. I know that was how the Wing valve cover was, as is the KLX. Pre-set squish on the gasket and the bolts bottom out on a flange.

 

Yep, that's exactly how these ones work. I've snapped a couple b/c the PO tightened them down like a regular bolt. It weakened them so that when I tightened to spec they just broke off... not a fun time when it's one of the last steps usually lol!

 

Shoot, they ought to have those double head bolts where the top snaps off when at the proper torque for some people! Of course it would be both cheaper and easier to simply use a torque wrench too, but that would be asking those who destroy stuff to do something they seldom completely do - think!

 

You can still break stuff with a torque wrench... took me a try or two to figure out that Nm isn't a fancy way of writing ft/lbs ha!

 

Damn metrics! Communist plot I tell ya!

Everything should be in Whitworth I tell ya! Now how would that work... hand/stone?