Why do nuts and bolts continue to loosen on my motorcycle?

Why do nuts and bolts continue to loosen on my motorcycle? – on our site you will find the best spare parts and accessories for cars and motorcycles

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Why do nuts and bolts continue to loosen on my motorcycle?

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I knew a rider who spent the ’80s touring North America on a large single-cylinder motorcycle.

He only stopped for a few things: places to stay, places to eat, good skating rinks (he carried skates in a saddlebag), and places that sold Loctite.

Nuts and bolts constantly loosened or fell off his bike… including the license plate bolts, just a few blocks from the dealership where he bought it!

His tools filled a surplus World War II backpack tied to the rear fender, and their bounce probably undid some of the tightening he did with them. The phenomenon of loosening bolts will be familiar to those of you on thumpers or big twins, although it can happen to any bike. Why does this happen?

It’s not entirely accurate to say that fasteners are loosening. Leave your bike parked, and they stay put, right? Instead, it’s the interaction between your bike’s vibrations and the natural frequencies of the fasteners that causes the loosening. Expose a threaded fastener to a particular vibration long enough, and it will move a bit, then more, and then you’ll be wondering where your bolt went. Motorcycles with naturally unbalanced engines, like narrow-angle V-twins or large singles without counterweights, generally suffer more vibrations than naturally balanced engines, like the inline-sixes found in BMW K1600s or old Honda CBXs. Long periods of high-speed riding often accelerate loosening.

A German engineer named Gerhard Junker studied the effects of vibrations on fasteners in the late ’60s and found that transverse loads (perpendicular to the length of the fastener) were much more likely to shake things loose than axial loads (in line with the bolt). He went on to design a means to test a fastener’s resistance to vibrations, called the Junker test. You insert a fastener, tighten it to the desired setting, and the testing machine tortures the fastener with simulated shaking. Researchers can then see what it takes to surpass the fastener’s clamping load. When the clamp load fails, the fastener can no longer do its job, and engineers typically want to find those failure points long before a motorcycle, bridge, or skyscraper does.

Wearing lab coats and watching bolts loosen might seem a bit dry, but that’s why our motorcycles wear all kinds of safety washers, cotter pins, spring washers, locknuts, castle nuts with cotter pins, rubber isolators, handlebar end weights, and thread-locking compounds, just to name a few tricks used to keep fasteners fastened. Track day and race organizers usually take it a step further by requiring safety wiring for critical parts like oil filters. And for those crucial things that must never come apart, well, there’s always cross-threading…

So what can we do to combat bolt loosening that could spill our saddlebags full of roller skates on the highway at any moment? Anticipate the problem by following all torque specs in your bike’s manual. If testers found that some bolts were trying to jump ship every 5,000 miles, chances are your bike has the same issue. This goes double for wobbly singles and twins. Keep that torque wrench handy! You may need to retighten some fasteners after they “settle in” during those first miles.

For stubborn fasteners that won’t stay put, you have a few options. First, inspect the fasteners themselves. They may be worn, and Loctite claims a typical bolt may only have 15% surface-to-surface contact to start with. Thread-locking adhesives, like Loctite, come in a huge variety of strengths, so a little forum sleuthing should find you another rider with the same issue and a liquid solution. Finally, the good old safety wire is always an option. Locking fasteners like a pro takes a bit of practice and some basic supplies.

For true fastener nerds, here’s an old NASA manual covering the full range of fastening technology. My favorite section concerns the split-ring style of safety washers: “In summary, such a washer is useless for locking.” Dang, NASA, tell us how you really feel.

Fastener loosening isn’t exactly the biggest hazard motorcyclists face today, especially with so many bikes now engineered with a better understanding of vibration effects than in pre-Junker days. In short: don’t be late to the skating rink because the right vibrations at the wrong time sidelined your ride. Take everything your manual advises and roll on. Estimated shipping time is about 7 working days; shipping is done via negotiable fast shipping.

Our international couriers may experience slight delays due to the current situation; however, our support team will always be available for any assistance.

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Why do nuts and bolts continue to loosen on my motorcycle?

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It is the responsibility of the customer to ensure that the product is compatible with their vehicle. We recommend consulting with a professional mechanic before purchasing to confirm compatibility. Racext is not responsible for any issues that may arise from the use of our products, including but not limited to damage to the vehicle or personal injury.

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Why do nuts and bolts continue to loosen on my motorcycle?

SELECT YOUR VEHICLE'S BRAND AND MODEL TO FIND ALL COMPATIBLE PRODUCTS ON RACEXT.