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I've been wrenching on motorcycles for 45 years and I can't believe I'm just coming across this now. I always thought those pretty little screws with a cross in them were Phillips and I probably have 20 odd screwdrivers in my tool box for dealing with Phillips head screws. At times I've had to pull out my old faithful Mac tool #2 Phillips driver to get out that screw that just doesn't want to come out. If it's really stubborn I've pulled out my handheld impact and walloped it with a hammer. But for the most part I've cursed some screws because the stamped head just doesn't seem to fit my screwdrivers.
Recently I picked up a set of Milwaukee Shock Wave bits for my De Walt impact driver and I've been REALLY pleased with the way they take out those "Phillips" head screws.

Well. I got a news flash for some of you. There's a standard screw out there and has been there for at least 35 years and it's called a JIS screw short form for Japanese Industrial Standard. It looks like a Phillips but it's not and a JIS screwdriver will fit in a Phillips head screw and drive it nicely , BUT a Phillips head driver will not fit a JIS screw properly and that's why we keep fudging up the heads on our screws!!!




Note the dimple mark on the head of the JIS screw. The main difference in the screws are, the Phillips head screws have a radius corner on the inside corners where the JIS screws have square edges and the Phillips is tapered to the bottom where the JIS has a flat bottom.




And then there's the Posi-lock which we don't have to concern ourselves with thank God.

I can't believe that I can't find JIS drivers easily. I've been to Snap-on. Gray tool. Mac Tool and several other tool suppliers and when I ask for a JIS driver. they think I have three heads until they Google search and find out what I've found out. I'm still searching for JIS bits because yesterday I was pulling the throttle plate shaft and the little screws holding the butterfly valves have the JIS tit on the head of the screw and my drivers didn't like to engage the head very well.

I'm still looking for a supplier for the JIS bits. @#%#@$%@

This is an outstanding article which should be archived appropriately for easy future reference !

Couldn't have said it better ! thanks KB

Found a couple of sources for screwdrivers and driver bits for the JIS screws. (If anyone's interested)

www.motionpro.com/motorcycle/search/overview/jis/

www.rjrcooltools.com/vessel.cfm

Hey, MotionPro also has all of the hard-to-find cables for our bikes, too!

Probably the biggest single reason why most of us have given up trying to get those butterflies off the shaft, with the all the destruction taking place before our very eyes. Good find.

Web bike world quite like posi- taps.