[1990Blue]

I have a 1990 300 fourtrax 4x4 and i adjusted the valves the other day. while putting the covers back on i noticed that two of the bolts on the cylinder head moved when my knuckle bumped them soooo I turned them by hand and they wouldnt tighten up so I pulled them out along with all the aluminium the threads could hold. the bolts are part 35 on this parts breakdown
http://www.hondapartsnation.com/pag...7/Honda.aspx?gclid=CKHWtcK61aECFYp95QodZiNKJA
they are both on the right side of the bike Im pretty sure this is why it has oil leaking out of the head gasket on the right hand side. lol. my question is; Does anybody have any ideas on how to fix this (no threads in the head to grab)? and what caused it? I'm not sure when the bolts stripped out. I've had the bike for 4 yrs now and its always had oil on the right side, so i'm assuming the threads have been let go the whole time. Iv'e never rode for more than 15 min out around the yard and it has always started right up and ran ok to include the day before i adjusted the valves. Haven't tried to start it since i found out but assuming it would. What do I do?

 

[Helmut]

The holes that the bolts went in are usually about 1/4 inch deeper than the length of the bolt, so there is usually about 3 or 4 threads down in the bottom of the hole that didn't get stripped out. If you can find some bolts the same size, but about 1/4 inch longer, then they will probably fit in the hole and have enough threads to tighten up. Just make sure they don't bottom out before you tighten them all the way up or they might twist off down in the hole. Also, there is some thread repair compound that you can buy that works OK, but I would use that as a last resort only. You can get it at about any auto parts store.

BTW, that won't hurt your engine to run it that way as long as you keep your oil checked and don't run it low on oil. Those are not the main head bolts, they're just two of the valve cover bolts. I can't remember if those two long bolts run all the way through the cylinder to the crankcase or not, but if they do, you could pull the cylinder off and use a helicoil kit. I would try to use longer bolts first, though.