you never want to hear a bolt fall off your motorcycle.

[vash]

i know i heard it. PING!

i thought i might have rolled over some metal bit and kicked it up. but that was soon to be discovered as WRONG!. i developed a clunk. finding a clunk on a bike is not easy, since everything is so loud, and a helmet really muffles sound "direction". i secured all the crap under my seat, nope. doubled checked my new center-stand. all good. tightened up some rattling hardware on my luggage racks, (thought i got it) but nope. last night, the clunk was still there.

i sat down and stared at my bike..WTF?!! i found it. the rear bolt of my back brake caliper fell out! my caliper was swinging up like a barn door and clunking on the way back down. i clearly forgot to torque it all down properly.

i'm gonna buy the factory bolt. my stash available was not the correct length. sucks, the triumph dealership is in Marin. lessoned learned. i am going to install it, and go thru and re-torque every fastener i dicked with reinstalling my tires.

[vash]

hope i dont make my back sore

[Steve Carlton]

I looked down once and saw my front caliper dancing on the rotor. The BMW dealer failed to tighten it.

[Rot 911]

As the owner of a 71 triumph and a 73 Norton I can assure you that blue Loctite is your friend!

[vash]

ROT.,.,true. very true.

[biosurfer1]

Reminds me of the scene in Ford vs. Ferrari when Shelby took a large nut and walked near the Ferrari pit and tossed it on the ground, then the Ferrari team started to freak out when they found it, wondering where it should be😁

[Tidybuoy]

Originally Posted by biosurfer1

Reminds me of the scene in Ford vs. Ferrari when Shelby took a large nut and walked near the Ferrari pit and tossed it on the ground, then the Ferrari team started to freak out when they found it, wondering where it should be😁

That was the only scene of the movie that I didn't like. Seemed like cheating when they didn't need to.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by biosurfer1

Reminds me of the scene in Ford vs. Ferrari when Shelby took a large nut and walked near the Ferrari pit and tossed it on the ground, then the Ferrari team started to freak out when they found it, wondering where it should be😁

Yea, it looked like it was a lug nut.

[varmint]

Song of the Buell owner.

Whenever something came loose I’d hit the hardware store near the Burbank airport. They sold a higher grade nuts and bolts.

[John Rogers]

Long time ago I had a BSA A10 and it lost bolts and nuts all the time. I tried locktite and that never helped so I finally ended up drilling all the fasteners and lockwiring everything. That worked!

When racing my vintage 914-6 I HATED to follow any English built car as they shed nuts, bolts and sheet metal screws usually after a couple laps once things got warmed up!!!!

[stevej37]

In the early 70's, I was riding my CB350 Honda just after working on the carbs.
Doing around 45mph, I felt something like a sting around my leg calf.
Looking down, saw flames licking up on both sides of the gas tank...I had messed up something on the rubber fuel lines. I managed to get it stopped and with the kickstand down...ran to the nearest house for something to stop the fire.
The bike had 10 ft flames by the time the fire dept got there. It burnt down to all metal, nothing else...still on the kickstand!

[908/930]

Was 17 and purchased a 1971 Kawasaki H1 from a friend, after doing some work on it and a oil change, possibly know where this is going, let it warm up in the garage , the fumes from it make your eyes water and then went for a ride around the block, just before a turn I feel the back end a little loose so I slowed right down and made the corner and parked, yup the oil drain plug was not tight and rattled out, walked back and found the drain plug at the beginning of the line of oil on the road and rode the bike home, 2 stroke engine so was not worried about riding it short distance with no oil in transmission. Now I am more careful with double checking bolts.

[vash]

i made uneccesary trouble for myself.

my local-ish dealer is taking advantage of Covid slowdown and updating their entire computer system. they will be down for weeks. they had me call, their sister company in San Fransisco. the guy there said the part was NLA, and i needed to buy the entire caliper. hahahha.. i politely told him, "i'll call you back".

i called a huge dealership in PA. they told me it is a bolt kit. $15. they dont have it but can have it by friday and send it to me on the west coast. what can possibly go wrong? wow. i gave him my payment info and crossed my fingers.

i hate when relatively innocuous issues blow up into mountains.

[aigel]

Don't you have the other bolt still in? Is it identical? Measure it and buy the same rated bolt at a bolt place, or McMaster. Bolt is a bolt.

G

[vash]

Originally Posted by aigel

Don't you have the other bolt still in? Is it identical? Measure it and buy the same rated bolt at a bolt place, or McMaster. Bolt is a bolt.

G

its different. the rear has a section of unthreaded shaft that allows the caliper to be free floating. its offset from the front bolt.

[908/930]

Just remove the rear brake arm and ride.

[!pse203]

lost a gear lever from my CB125 about 40 years ago. That was frustrating.

[Bill Douglas]

And phone them first to check it's in stock.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Yikes - glad it worked out ok (the situation not the bolt).

Bikes don’t have a lot of “unnecessary” parts or room for repair goofs.

[sammyg2]

It's the bolt that you DON'T hear that you gotta worry about.

BTW red lock-tite is darn near forever unless you like drilling or are good with a torch.
Blue is gooder.