Stablock

Has anyone had any troubles removing the 4 allen screws from the back plate for the engine?

I was thoroughly cleaning my Savage and decided to pull the engine out and seal the carburetor and back plate as suggested in several different forums. I noticed an excessive amount of thread lock that was used during the assembly of the engine. It was caked in and around all the screw heads. After scraping the screw head out with a dental pick I was able to get the allen wrench tightly into the screw head, however, the screws will not budge. It simply bends and twists the allen wrench. After several attempts the screw head stripped. I tried a different screw and it simply broke the allen wrench. I have not successfully loosened any of the four screws.

My concern now is I will never be able to rebuild this engine when the time comes because I cannot remove the stripped screw head.

I believe this issue is a result of the poor assembly of the engine and believe HPI should repair or replace or fix the issue. I emailed them. I'll let you know what comes of it.

Just wondering if anyone else had this problem?

Dave33

My Feedback: (2)

Get yourself a dremel and thin cut off wheel. Cut a slot into each screw so you can use a flat blade screw driver to loosen. You may want to apply a little heat with a haet gun or torch. Be careful using the torch, don't let it get near the fuel. You only need a small amount of heat and they should break loose.

ace007

Yeah use a heat gun to warm up the threadloc and it should come loose easily.

tmodlin

Heat is the answer. If you can get a dremel blade in there without ruining the back plate I would do that. If this doesnt work I would see what HPI says and pray that they will help you. Those screws are too tiny to use an extractor or ez out. Good luck

Stablock

This is HPI's response;

I think I'm gonna send it to them to fix only because I believe this justifies a warranty claim. They warranty the engine to be free from defects in workmanship and assembly. It is the excessive amount of thread lock that was used at the manufacture during the assembly that is preventing the loosening of the screws. That is the issue and as a result, one of the screw heads stripped and another screw broke the allen wrench that was provided with my RTR kit.

This should be covered under the warranty.

Stablock

Here is the latest.

I only hope they don't damage the engine trying to remove the screws. If they do, at least they are responsible for it.

tmodlin

The last thing companies want is bad customer feedback. With the Internet getting more and more popular everyday and new forums popping up all over the place companies would rather bite the bullit on small issue like yours than have 1000 people read about their bad customer service.

It sounds like they are taking the right steps with this one since it was clearly their fault during assembly.