How can they be better, have yet to pull out a helicoil on my own work. Have done more than a few in the past.

 

Good for you Max, I've seen a more than a few that didn't go to plan that must of been done wrongly, you know the sort of mischief they can cause when they try to come out with the bolt on disassembly, time-serts never do that. The fitter and turner in me likes them more, have used helicoils by the thousands, still do at times.

 

You can buy "helicoils", and many other variations to the threaded insert at McMaster Carr. Timeserts are proprietary, single source items. Not to mention, the threaded surface area on the outside of a Helicoil is larger than on the Timesert, which is a great selling point to me.

 

Actually I know of a guy that had a spark plug time sert come out.. Only helicoils I've seen come out were done by guys that drilled the hole out of round or offset, or mugged up threads due to not using a good cutting fluid or dull tap. Same can be said for time serts. In fact they may have more trouble due to only expanding/gripping at the bottom.

 

Nice thing about helicoils is that you can get the long ones and cut to size. Timeserts, you have buy at a specific length.

I have seen a number of screwed up holes for sure.

 

I suppose it's like any thread repair, if you cut corners or don't do it right for whatever reason the chance of a screw up is pretty high, agree on helicoil versatility though, I've not used the time-serts extensively but my results to date have been flawless, I still have a draw with heaps of helicoils in it and I've no doubt they will be used at some point.

 

On either one, it's important to have a properly threaded hole. More so than the original hole. One thing nice about helicoils is that you can select internal thread fit buy using a different tap. You can order an H1 hole fit where Timeserts are likely H3 for anything above 1/4 inch.

 

The only place on a Harley the Timesert wins is their oil pan drain kit. The insert actually requires a special tool to expand the bottom of the insert to make it an oil tight seal and stick in place. I used a bit of red loctite to really seal the deal, but you get the idea.

 

I use red loctite as well and will keep using time-serts where I think they are the better deal regardless of what I read on a Harley forum.

 

When I worked at a machine shop in the St. Louis metro area yeeears ago, they did a ton of work for McDonnell-Douglas Aircraft.(now Hughes)
At the original point of manufacturing, in aluminum, the drawings stated the use of Mil-Spec part numbers that were Heli-Coil brand thread inserts.
When installed correctly, the stainless steel wire, is stronger than the parent material.
Scott