[NinjaLife]

Has anyone ever encountered warped header studs? I'm trying to get these header flanges installed for akra headers and the flanges will not go on easily, its like the studs are warped. I got one flange on but it took over an hour or finessing it. I tested the flanges on my old head that i have laying around and the flanges slid on there perfectly almost with no effort. Is it possible the replacement head I installed has warped header studs, any ideas?

 

[michael4012]

Has anyone ever encountered warped header studs? I'm trying to get these header flanges installed for akra headers and the flanges will not go on easily, its like the studs are warped. I got one flange on but it took over an hour or finessing it. I tested the flanges on my old head that i have laying around and the flanges slid on there perfectly almost with no effort. Is it possible the replacement head I installed has warped header studs, any ideas?

Possibly bent studs rather than warped studs, perhaps previous owner dropped it?

 

[NinjaLife]

Possibly bent studs rather than warped studs, perhaps previous owner dropped it?

Thanks for the response! Yes! bent studs is more of what I meant, I always use the wrong terms lol. At this point, all I can think of is that the damn studs have to be bent. I walked away and came back a few hours later and still can't get the flange on.

Gonna keep thinking it over but if anyone has any ideas let me hear it lol.

 

[michael4012]

Rather than try to straighten them in head just pull em and replace with new?

 

[NinjaLife]

That's a good idea that I briefly thought about. I didn't know those studs were replaceable. Perhaps I will do some research on how easy/hard it is to replace the studs. I do not want to pull entire head just to install damn headers lol.

I did briefly put channel lock pliers on the first set of studs that I had trouble with, then was able to somehow get the one flange on.

Also thought that maybe the akra header flanges were bent somehow but that can't be the case as they slide on my old head so freakin easy.

 

[SkyDork]

As stated, they won't warp. They may bend slightly if the bike was crashed. Or hit with a hammer at some point. But that is not something that happens often and won't affect all of them. That should maybe be on 1 or 2 cylinders. So are they all giving you problems? Or just a certain one?

The easiest thing is to replace the studs. That will be a b!tch getting them out though as they are likely corroded into the head that will make them harder to unscrew. But the first thing you should do is try to spin them out and watch the end of it to see if it wobbles. If it does wobble as you're spinning it out, then you'll know it's bent. Otherwise, the flange would just be a tighter tolerance since it's new than the studs that are on there. In that case, just use a bigger hammer to beat them on.

 

[NinjaLife]

As stated, they won't warp. They may bend slightly if the bike was crashed. Or hit with a hammer at some point. But that is not something that happens often and won't affect all of them. That should maybe be on 1 or 2 cylinders. So are they all giving you problems? Or just a certain one?

The easiest thing is to replace the studs. That will be a b!tch getting them out though as they are likely corroded into the head that will make them harder to unscrew. But the first thing you should do is try to spin them out and watch the end of it to see if it wobbles. If it does wobble as you're spinning it out, then you'll know it's bent. Otherwise, the flange would just be a tighter tolerance since it's new than the studs that are on there. In that case, just use a bigger hammer to beat them on.

As of right now, it seems to be only the left side, cylinders 1 and 2 that are giving me problems. I did try to put the flange on the 2 right side cylinders(throttle side) and cylinders 3/4 seemed like the flange would go on with a little patience but much more easier than the first 2 cylinders. I will take a closer look at these studs, since I do have the old head I could probably just swap the studs but like you mention, the old studs are likely corroded in there lol.

Funny, I definitely thought about using a damn hammer I had sitting next to me, but didn't want to risk damaging the threads on the studs. Will definitely update once I get this figured out... Thanks again for the info/recommendations. I really appreciate it.

 

[don sholand]

Nylon hammer?

 

[NinjaLife]

Ok, first off big thanks again to everyone who chimed in.


The studs on cylinders 2 & 3 had to be bent, I was able to remove them really easy they weren't corroded at all like we thought lol. Took maybe 5-10 mins to get them out. I ended up swapping both studs from cylinder 2 and just swapped one of the studs on cylinder 3. Got all the flanges on now, just need to tighten them down then do the piping but for now I'm taking a victory break and beer lol.