Tailgate
Senior Member
Picked up T-Rex sliders on ebay. They looked good since they had the metal inserts and Delron (yeah, I know there are better). Before installing them, I checked the torque of stock engine bolts---I was surprised that they were only about 30 foot/pounds. I carefully torqued them to 40 lbs (per service manual specs) just to get how they should feel at 40lbs and to make a preliminary check . Then, I backed the left side engine mount bolt out, installed the correct left-side (shorter) T-Rex slider and proceeded to tighten the bolt. At less than 20 ft/lbs torque I heard a "pop". Next thing I knew, tightening the bolt became wierd. It was futile; the bolt now would not torque further. I KNEW the sick feeling: trying to tighten a bolt/screw into threads that have been stripped. I removed the slider and bolt. There were about 3 threads wrapped perfectly around the slider bolt. The softer FZ6 aluminum threads gave way. Why did this happen? The frame slider bolt, when coupled with the slider itself, could not penetrate into the FZ6 threaded hole as deep as the Yamaha engineers designed it to be. The result was me trying to torque down a frame slider bolt that could only "bite" partway into the threaded engine mount assembly. With less engine mount threads to bite into,the demand was too much. Fantastic! I now have to helecoil or oversize tap thread the engine mount. Advice: don't use frame sliders with bolts that don't screw in as much as the stock bolts.
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