When things go wrong they keep going

[Brockett]

Reading on another forum a chap looking for TDC used a pencil down the plughole. As the piston came up the bore it pressed against the pencil and it broke. He was asking for advice on how to get it out. A little later he sent a post to show the cylinder head that he was now trying to remove with one cap head bolt with a butchered  head asking for the "best way of removing it".  He has been advised that the cap head fixing is just a screw in cap sealing a hole and at the bottom of the hole is the cylinder head fixing bolt. Advice to remove it includes hammerining in a torx driver  and cutting a slot for a screw driver or cold chisel. If I hear, I'll let you know how it turns out.

[nigel s]

When someone asks at the bike park how to fix broken cooling fins on a cylinder head, caused by the crowbar they were using slipping........ it is time for them to watch the back of my head getting smaller.

Ho Hum

[Brockett]

Re my previous post. The head was removed and the pencil and all it's parts were extracted. One of the good things about a Moto Guzzi air cooled pushrod engine. I guess the moral of the story is don't put anything in a spark plug hole other than the corrct size spark plug.

[Rixington43]

Or a rag when you're checking your tappet shims 

[Brockett]

   

[porter]

When I was younger and more stupid than I am now I once put a tyre pressure gauge down a spark plug hole on a XT 600 to find TDC. Of course it moved and the piston bent it, luckily for me it was a cheap plastic crap one and not metal!
 It's funny how what seem a good idea at the time can turn so bad so quickly.  Thanks for reminding me Brockett!