Replacing a stripped carburetor stud - vintage Vespa

The original 2-stroke Genuine scooter and its 4-stroke manual and automatic offspring

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Chatis
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Joined: Tue Mar 31, 2015 1:01 am
Location: Kansas

Replacing a stripped carburetor stud - vintage Vespa

Post by Chatis »

I read and get huge benefits from all of the tech postings but don’t make any of my own. I hope this is helpful to some.

After cleaning the varnish off my Carburetor I reinstalled it to the factory specs and stripped the thread on the rear stud torquing it to 10 pound feet. I had three options:

1. Rethread it to 8mm and make a special stud
2. Rethread it to 8mm and use an 8mm stud
3. Use a helicoil and stay with 7mm stud

Since the hole for the helicoil is larger than 8mm I decided to go the first route. Without doing any drilling I ran an 8mm x 1.25 tap into the hole which worked great but I needed a bottoming tap. So I ordered one of those and cleaned up the thread as deep as I could go.

I then took an M8 bolt, filed off the threads and tapped it to 7mm. Unfortunately two attempts could not get the stud true. So I abandoned the first option and moved to the second.

I bought some threaded rod and cut the stud. Made a sleeve for the thread that was perfect from a tire thread depth device I was given. Did a trial assembly and it was fantastic except that the 13mm hex from an 8mm nut could not turn in the space provided by the carb.

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After a lengthy search on the internet I found a place that sells 8mm nuts with an 11mm hex so I ordered them. The place is http://www.belmetric.com and I provide this only for convenience – I am not promoting them. There shipping is high for a few nuts.

Once the nuts came in assembly commenced. I used a blue thread lock on the stud in the engine

See the pictures for more details.


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All torqued up good. Have run the scoot for a while and no leaks. So far so good.

Now if I could only get it to run well…
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Neurotic-Hapi-Snak
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Post by Neurotic-Hapi-Snak »

You know they make studs that are a larger thread on one half and smaller on the other. I've seen M8-M6, but I bet you could find a M8-M7.
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