Split Airbox

Discovered a split at the front of my airbox where the two halves join.  A more experienced friend gave me a hand to remove it (more a case of he removed it whilst I offered words of encouragement & mugs of coffee).  He's taken it way to clean it out & see if it's fixable.  If not, it's a new one at £120.  

Not the end of the world, but wondered if anyone else had experienced this ?





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The airbox is easily plastic welded, and the JB Black Plastic Bonder sticks to it like the proverbial.

Thanks for that - I'll get some in stock.  Appreciated

Grisos and 'Big tank' Stelvios share the same airbox and there was a run of them back in 2012 that weren't constructed properly or were damaged before fitment. I have no idea how common it was but I've has a couple of Stelvios through the shop that dusted their engines badly due to holey airboxes.

Checking is very easy though. Take the air filter out and put the lid back on and then shine a torch in through the snorkel or intake if you've removed the snorkel. Block the area around the torch to prevent scatter and then check carefully around the seams of the box. Do this somewhere where you can turn the lights off or outside in the dark to make it easier to see any escaping light. If there are holes or splits in the box it will be very obvious.

Also judging from the amount of oily residue around the split I'd say that the sump has been over-filled. Let it find its own level and don't add any more unless the oil actually drops off the stick. And make sure BOTH the drain spigots on the box have their hoses attached and plugged. They're important.

Pete Roper wrote:

Grisos and 'Big tank' Stelvios share the same airbox and there was a run of them back in 2012 that weren't constructed properly or were damaged before fitment. I have no idea how common it was but I've has a couple of Stelvios through the shop that dusted their engines badly due to holey airboxes.

Checking is very easy though. Take the air filter out and put the lid back on and then shine a torch in through the snorkel or intake if you've removed the snorkel. Block the area around the torch to prevent scatter and then check carefully around the seams of the box. Do this somewhere where you can turn the lights off or outside in the dark to make it easier to see any escaping light. If there are holes or splits in the box it will be very obvious.

Also judging from the amount of oily residue around the split I'd say that the sump has been over-filled. Let it find its own level and don't add any more unless the oil actually drops off the stick. And make sure BOTH the drain spigots on the box have their hoses attached and plugged. They're important.

Hi Pete

Mine's a 2015 model - would they have still been using boxes from 2012 ? Hopefully we caught it before it's done any engine damage - guess I won't know unless the engine starts to fail ?

I know the oil was overfilled at the last service - the dealer followed the spec sheet & put in 3.5lt - I ended up taking out about 300ml.  Thought we'd lift the tank & make sure it wasn't a split pipe - fortunately all the pipes were intact, but Lee noticed the split at the bottom of the airbox.  He's lifted it out & taken it to put it through the ultra-sonic tank at his work.  I've ordered some of the WB Weld Plastic Bond as recommended by Beetle & I'll plastic weld it up first.  Fingers crossed that'll sort it without having to buy a new one.  

Thanks for your input

3.5L is way too much oil. No more than half way between the 'Add' and 'Full' marks on the stick and with a 2015 it'll probably settle considerably lower. Whatever you do don't 'Top it up'.

Hopefully it won't have had time to do any harm, especially in your environment. It really doesn't take long for things to start to go pear shaped though as I found to my cost when I lost a drain hose a few years ago. I only rode back from South Australia to home and then for a couple of weeks before I noticed it but it was long enough to damage my TB's. Not ruinously, but I had a high and rough idle that was incurable.

Pete Roper wrote:

3.5L is way too much oil. No more than half way between the 'Add' and 'Full' marks on the stick and with a 2015 it'll probably settle considerably lower. Whatever you do don't 'Top it up'.

Hopefully it won't have had time to do any harm, especially in your environment. It really doesn't take long for things to start to go pear shaped though as I found to my cost when I lost a drain hose a few years ago. I only rode back from South Australia to home and then for a couple of weeks before I noticed it but it was long enough to damage my TB's. Not ruinously, but I had a high and rough idle that was incurable.

Thanks for that Peter - I don't manage to do anywhere near the amount of miles I used to - I think last year was a biggie for me at just under a thousand.  Last time I was out on it, it sounded exactly the same as it always did & was running great, so I gonna assume that I've done no lasting damage.  Going back over a previous post, I went for 3ltr (I took 500 ml out) & that seemed to be a good starting point.

Airbox has been cleaned up, JB Weld arrived this morning, hopefully I'll find some time over the coming weekend to try to sort it