Sometimes the simplest ideas are some of the best. This is one of those!

It came up in a conversation with Ian Glenwright, one of my valued customers.

A heavy accident on his GL1000 caused one of the rocker boxes to get severely broken with the inevitable result of pieces of metal and other debris found their way down into the engine through the oil drainage holes.

Being a fastidious character, he felt the only way to make sure everything was clean was to strip down the engine. But while he was re-assembling it he gave some thought as to how to prevent having to do that, if by chance the same thing was to happen again.

Obtaining some fine mesh brass sheet, two shapes were cut, as in the following picture, to cover the oil return tunnel where the head meets the block, so that the mesh was sandwiched between the cylinder heads and the head gaskets!

There is no gasket reinforcement at this point so the mesh, being fine, obviously sinks into the head gasket when the bolts are torqued up but the oil holes now have a barrier to stop anything such as accident damage, valve keepers, rocker screws and nuts etc.(these last can now be fished out with a magnet) going down them!

Well, sure enough, he did have another big one. But this time it was only necessary to remove the head, wash it clean, remove the head gasket along with the mesh and debris and replace the lot. No strip down!

So Simple! I think this is one of the best tips I have heard in a very long time!

Thank you Ian, for this tip!

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