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EVO: Oiling & Lubrication - Sub-04B

04 Style Oil Cap Repair

Article by JohnK of the XLFORUM 1)

If you've noticed your oil cap mysteriously popping up, it could be a broken internal sleeve.
One of the first symptoms is that the cap will not stay flush, but will protrude maybe an eighth of an inch above the tank surface.
Eventually it will not click down in place at all.
Take a close look just under the cap, where the plunger enters the body.
The black sleeve protruding above the grey body (in the right side arrow in the 1st pic below) may indicate a broken sleeve.

The sleeve should be flush around the perimeter as
shown by the left side arrow. 2)
To disassemble, find the two side square tabs and
push each one in, and the mechanism will pop out
under spring pressure. 3)
This is what you will have, notice the ratchet spring
on the side, note how it fits for re-assembly later. 4)

Now take a look at the bottom of the 'sleeve'.
It should be one piece.
The two halves are held together by two very thin sections of plastic on the bottom (as in the circled areas below).
In this case, the sleeve was broken into two pieces.

The locking tabs are both on one half of the sleeve, the other side is free to slide inside the body.
As long as the sleeve is joined together in one piece that's fine.
But the bottom thin section is prone to cracking.
(one side is locked and the other moves up and down ever so slightly each time the cap is popped)
Once this fails, the 'loose' side will protrude up as seen in the first pic above.
The side without the locking tabs is also the side with the ratchet spring.
(which adds additional up and down drag every time the mechanism is worked, accelerating the failure)

The thin connecting material was broken out. 5)Here are all the components, minus the broken out
pieces. The sleeve is now in two halves. 6)
Note the locking tabs on one half of the sleeve and
none on the other. 7)

The solution was to re-assemble the mechanism and install a set-screw to hold the loose side in place.

The entire operation shouldn't take more than an hour, if you take your time.
The only items required are a small screwdriver to push in the locking tabs, a set screw, an appropriate drill bit and drill.
You can find a small flat head screw, countersink the hole and drive the screw head flush for a better-than original look and function.
8)

Below, a brass screw from an electrical lug was used to screw through the grey plastic body and into the black inner sleeve.
It was short enough not to interfere with the moving plunger while long enough to screw through the grey plastic body to the sleeve.
Find a way to hold the sleeve down flush with the outer body and drill a hole slightly smaller than the screw thread.
Drill it right through both the body and sleeve.
It can be done with the plunger installed but it would be better to leave it out.
Drive the screw into the plastic, it will cut its own thread (that's why you drill a smaller pre-drill size hole).

Finished product. 9)Here's what it looks like from the inside. The spot for this particle drilled hole put the screw partially in the slot,
which would have nullified the fix. A smarter choice would have been into one of the lugs as indicated below. 10)


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