Ok this is my story, I'm not sure of the names of everything I'm about to talk about so bear with me here....This work is being done on a 2002 GPR.

I started to replace my Cat-con last night with the D-plate. I got everything off with no real problems. The six bolts that hold the cat-con in place were quite tuff to get out but they finally came out. I took the pipe apart, put the d-plate in and started to put everything back together. This is where the trouble began, I get all 6 cat-con / d-plate bolts back in but they won't tighten back down all the way. I still had about an eighth of an inch to go for 4 of the bolts and about a quarter of an inch for the other 2. there was no way these bolts were going any tighter. So, I decided to back them back out and re-clean the threads. Well, these bolts arent going anywhere, I was only able to back one of them out and I snapped one of them off at the start of the thread. On the one that I backed out, the bottom half of the threaded part was stripped. I'm not sure what I did wrong here but something didn't line up right at some point and now I'm wondering what to do next.
So...here are my questions....

1. Should I take the pipe to a machine shop to back the bolts out and have them re-thread everything, or do I just buy a Stinger 3 pipe and not mess with the stock pipe?

2. If I get a Stinger pipe, are there any other mods that I will need to go allong with it (other than the ones I have listed below) or will the pipe be fine by itself.

3. Why am I such a jackazz? (please don't answer this one)

Thank you everyone for your help!

[ 05-28-2003, 06:41 AM: Message edited by: OhioGPR ]

Well if I were you, and I am not, but if I were, I would find (ask) someone to sell you their stock exhaust pipe with the bolts and start over with the D-plate. It would be MUCH cheaper than going to the S3. I saw one on ebay that sold for $31. The S3 is about $500 and other than giving you easy access to the carbs it really doesn't give you more than the D-plate. Just my opinion.

Thanks Swagtime!

[ 05-28-2003, 10:46 AM: Message edited by: OhioGPR ]

Take it to a machine shop, drill and tap it, buy new hardware (Stainless allen heads), and bolt that thing together. Machine shop shouldnt cost more than $20-30 bucks. They'll have it done in a day.....

Find a used one with fasteners and invest in a Yamaha shop manual to ensure that you dont' repeat #3 on your list.

I just did an install like this not to long ago and I did not have any problems with the cat-con bolts but one of the bolts that mounted the cat-con to the motor broke off. This happened some time ago and I still don’t know why. I replaced both bolts with 8.8 strength instead of the OE 8 strength. If you use stainless (believe it or not) it is more brittle and may crack at any time. Try the 8.8 strength when you replace the bolts but check if the head of that bolt will clear the pipe, as the 8.8 strength heads are bigger than the 8 strength. The 8.8 strength bolts will give a little before they break stainless will not. I am not sure if the OE bolts have red lock tight on them but the cat-con bolts are tough to get out. I used blue lock tight and torqued to the bolts to the specification stated in the instillation instructions 24f/Lbs. It sounds like you got some copper spray in the threads? Did you use copper spray gasket sealant? If not you should, better safe than sorry and you don’t want to have to pull the pipe again when you have a leak. I have a lot more information on this subject in the post: http://www.rivayamaha.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=015323 Hope this helps.

Thank you everyone for your help!! A local shop has an OEM exhaust pipe for me and a shop manual. I'm going to pick them up tonight and put everything back together...the correct way this time.