Rear disc bolt removal advice sought.

[97tiger885]

No I disagree most emphatically. The rotor disc bolts do not need excessive torque, those bolts are brittle high tensile SS for a reason. The rotors are designed to dissipate heat. This leads to a lot of expansion and contraction. Throw in oodles of fine vibration and the fact the rotary direction of the wheel induces left hand rotation at the bolt axis and you begin to understand why. Still don't? when the bolt catches on something you will.

Thanks for the input.  No doubt locktite is necessary in some applications...your RC helicopters, Mustang's sidecar mounts,... Experience has shown you where some of those places are.  The issue for me  is where it is necessary on my Tiger.  Are factory recommendations due to experience or based on a desire to minimize liability costs?  I have no desire to die or suffer injury but neither do I wish to constantly deal with the frustration, time and cost of seized nuts and bolts.  It is an issue of risk versus convenience.  And there are many parts to the risk: 1. How more likely is the bolt or nut to fail without locktite?; 2. What are the conditions under which it is likely to fail?;  3.  How often do I ride in those conditions?; 4. Given failure, how bad is the consequence of the failure likely to be?; and 5.  How likely am I to check nuts and bolts?.  Your experience and understanding is better than mine here.   I will have to do some more thinking on the matter.

[rybes]

i put copper slip on my disc bolts and ive done around 8000 miles with no signs of any problems so far.

[BruKen]

Just about everything you read on a forum and even the manuals is based on somebody's opinion. Generally one hopes that opinion is based on some experience and skill/training. I have never had a disc bolt come out on me either. So that's at least 2 people on opposite sides of the debate with positive results. In the end, if you leave the beaten path because its easier, then pay your money and take your chances.

You know, some cars these days are glued together, some planes too. I know of one aircraft mechanic who on restoring an old gsxr glued a broken sub frame back on. I'm sure he knows what he's doing, but I just can't get myself to give him my approbation on it either.