Everyone check bottom yoke pinch bolts!!

[pomm001]

Torque is a black art. There are so many variables that can vary a torque setting, materials, temp, thread type, lubricants etc. Even bolts in a non dynamic assembly can come undone unless there is a positive form of locking. Class 1 is a physical type of locking eg. splitpin, piening (Piening..) locking wire. Class 2 locking relies on friction or gluing eg. locktite, nylock locknuts, spring washers etc.

Another point I would like to make is that a fastner can torqued up to 200NM but undo it by a fraction of a mm and the torque can go intantly to zero (setting aircraft wheel bearings is a good example of where this is used in a practical way)

A word of caution on using loctite on stanless steel/ aluminium you may need activator N (copper salts in a solution of MEK) to make it cure. oterwise your stanless bolts may fall out anyway.

I hope this all makes sense

Take heed of what Mike L has written it is by far the most 'joined up' thinking on this thread.
While everybody needs to be safe checking torque can be more difficult than first thought, first of all you will need a decent torque wrench, mark the position of the fixing in relation to the clamp with a paint spot or tipex.
Loosed the bolt by half a turn and then tighten up and record the torque value to bring the marks into line again. This will give you 'loose' indication of what the torque was ( excluding the effect the loctite has on the friction )
Fitting spring washers into the joint would be very dangerous as most of the applied torque would go into overcomming of the friction of the spring washer, likewise changing the bolts for stainless, material properties are very different, stainless is not ductite and does not cope with tensile stress too well, you could end up with snapped bolts.

Please be Very careful

 

[TorHarald]

Yoke bolts keep losening up..........

Having ridden a couple of thousand kilometers after retorqueing the yoke pince bolts, they have lost their torque. This time they all seem to be de-torqued the same amount, while the first time the bottom bolts were much more out of torque than the upper bolts. Is it the aluminum alloy that is yielding or is it just the bolts unwinding? This time I will mark the bolts!

Cheers
Tor Harald

 

[Engineer]

I reckon that it will be almost impossible to get these bolts torqued to the same values. The bolts are very close together - as you tighten one bolt the clamp will close up slightly and reduce the tightness of the other bolt - if you then tighten the loose one just a tiny fraction more than the first, this will in turn close up the clamp and loosen the the other ...... and so on.... ad-infinitum (or the bolts strip their threads!).

All it requires is for one bolt to be a little tighter than the other for the torque value to drop dramatically.

So I reckon the only way to go.... is to tighten the bolts alternately very, very slowly until the correct torque is reached, but I bet that one will always be loose!

 

[dickie]

yoke bolts

4500 miles - only 1000 since last serve and yes - loose bolts too, all round. A very pleasant chap at the shop got busy with his torque wrench and assured me 'don't worry, it doesn't make things unsafe'. Hmmm. Then why fit the great chunk of metal and four bolts then?

I adore this bike - the most fun i've had on two wheels, regardless of weather and roads etc. This bolt business is a bit of a cloud though.

Four the past six years i've been thrashing around on a bike you would put money on self destructing - a ducati engined bimota. And yet - no bother. At all. Ever. Even living out doors all year round. (Just as well as my tool kit consists of a hammer..and, er, a bigger hammer).

It did not occur to me moving over the world of abs, heated grips and padded seats (ride 200mls on a bimota and you'll never take foam for granted again) that my front wheel might not be where i expect it to be one day.

Do we all buy torque wrenches or phone Harris and ask them to knock up a batch?

 

[Yoda]

Checked them for the first time last night. Not exactly tight, but not exactly loose either.

In summary then, not exactly right.

Thanks for the heads-up on this. Checking these bolts will now become part of the regular maintenance inspections.

 

[loosenuts]

this problem as been going on longer than you think , check out my forum 24/09/05

 

[HMR]

4500 miles - only 1000 since last serve and yes - loose bolts too, all round. A very pleasant chap at the shop got busy with his torque wrench and assured me 'don't worry, it doesn't make things unsafe'. Hmmm. Then why fit the great chunk of metal and four bolts then?

What you loose with loose yoke bolts is only some torsional stiffness of the front suspension.

Is that important? No, not at all important when riding alone at low speed!

But with passenger, luggage & high speed it may result in wobbling, crash, and death!

 

[Dave284]

Thanks guys another thanks for this forum.

I collected my GS 2 weeks ago and found the clamp bolts at no more than 10Nm.

They are done up to 24Nm now

Thanks

 

[Graham G]

Staying Calm...

[Withdrawn]

 

[Graham G]

Good Advice

I was a little alarmed when I first read this thread. I've had my 1200GS six weeks and the last thing I wanted to be thinking about was the front forks twisting!

I checked the bottom yoke bolts - mine seemed fine. They certainly weren't "finger tight". 25Nm isn't that much torque and I didn't want to loosen them and tighten them just for the sake of it. It's Sods Law that you'll do that and that's when you'll get a recurring problem until the yokes bed down.

The one thing I am curious about is of those that reported torque differences - how many are regularly doing a lot of 'gelande' riding? And how many are just purely 'strasse' riders? I've done 1400 miles - all road miles and so far everything seems fine. Fingers crossed.

I'll be keeping an eye on the pinch bolts though! Thanks for flagging this up.

Graham G

 

[LaSelvaRider]

1 week old. 100 miles and 2 at 10nm WOW!!!

 

[Tartan Terror]

I had my dealer check mine and they were fine. I have since marked then with loctite paint and they haven't moved at all. It has been said before but you will never get them all at the correct torque as tightening one will loosen the other.I say tighten matk or lockwire and forget about them. I really can't see how they could cause a problem anyhow with the fact that the front wheel is clamped so couldn't twist??

 

[sproggy]

Checked mine last night. '06 bike, 5 weeks old, 1300 miles total, 450 miles since first service (when presumably they'd check things like torque settings), no off-road use. One bolt was visibly sticking out further than the rest - wasn't even finger tight. Lucky I hadn't lost it. The other three were so slack they didn't even 'trigger' my torque wrench on its lowest setting of 5Nm.

Torqued them up - it was necessary to do this several times since torqing one bolt results in the other one of the pair loosening. 2 or 3 times per bolt in each pair was required before both maintained their correct torque setting. I wonder (as others have done) whether this is why people have recurring problems with the bolts loosening - because they only torque each bolt once and this results in the first one not being tight after the second one's been tightened.

As with most others, I'll now check these bolts every time I check the tyre pressures. I haven't done a long trip on the bike yet but often do 600 mile days when touring - surely I don't have to carry a torque wrench with me and check the bolts every fuel stop.....

Never had these problems with my 1150.......

 

[ALEXG]

Took delivery of my second R1200GS some 2500 miles ago. Torqued up the bolts at 1000 miles following the correct procedure but they have slackened off again. I am going to Loctite them tonight and was proposing to use 243 . Have those of you that have used this particular compound on these bolts established that it gets the the job done ?

 

[Shep]

Took delivery of my second R1200GS some 2500 miles ago. Torqued up the bolts at 1000 miles following the correct procedure but they have slackened off again. I am going to Loctite them tonight and was proposing to use 243 . Have those of you that have used this particular compound on these bolts established that it gets the the job done ?

Why all you will succeed in doing is gluing the bolts in place, which will prevent accurate checking on any torque values, mark the bolt heads with paint, next time when you check them i doubt if they have moved, but the torque value may have dropped due to the bracket stretching/settling down, this is what has happened to mine twice now. So, for me, no locktite, check them every month or so, untill they settle down.

Another anti loctite view is that if the excess glue gets into the fork leg/lower bracket joint this could cause problems later, when the fork needs dismantling.

Hope this helps

Shep

 

[Zoton]

Well just got round to checking mine all 4 incorrect .
Bout 1/2 to 3/4 turn to proper torque.

 

[TorHarald]

While having my rear brake disk retrofitted by my dealer the other day, I mentioned the possibly unwinding bolts. Glue 'em up with a mild Locktite was the answer, and so I did. I will report back when we get home from summerholiday.
/th

 

[jonothan]

Checked mine today after I'd bought the correct tools from Halfords.

They were all fine, all four of them, but I shall keep the small socket handle and correct socket in my toolkit and check them every week.

Makes sense.

J

 

[masione]

I took delivery of my brand new 06 two weeks ago. After reading this warning I checked mine and sure enough, they were not set to the correct torque (about one eighth of a turn shy). Thanks for the heads up! I will be checking them from now on...

 

[sycomoto]

Bmw risking our live's part 2

Interesting reading, I put a thread on last friday concerning BMW lack of checks at PDI and first service and can tell you that these things aren't checked at PDI, Wheel bolts, handlbar bolts, fork pinch bolts, caliper bolts, etc. I've currently got a big row going between myself and Bluebell and motorrad and they just say BMW doen't spec it on the sheet so we don't have to do it. Well thats not much help to my wife if i'm lying in a big box waiting to go in the furnace is it (been close to that once before and don't fancy it again) I think we need to put pressure on motorrad to get this changed as I have a brand new 1200gsa and don't want to send it to a BMW dealer for service as I feel I can do a better job and as i'm not on the clock i'm going to spend as much time as it takes to do the job properly.
Having just spent £10k on the GS i'm appaled at the total lack of service i've recieved. If I didn't love the bike as much as i do i'd have the thing up for sale and would be in the KTM dealership right now booking my order. maybe BMW should have a look over there shoulder cos the big oringe thing behind you ain't the sun it's the fast approaching KTM sales machine taking all your unhappy customers.