Stainless Bolt Kit - opinions?

[Zim]

I was looking at Chewys site and see he offers a stainless bolt kit. I realise it's just (apparently) 60 odd bolts, but how useful is this 'upgrade'. On his own bike showcase page he describes the ones he replaced himself as "swiss cheese", are they really that bad? (Not as bad as cheese obviously, but bad enough to need total replacement?). Isn't an expensive mod I know but I don't want to mess about for hours unnecessarily. These sort of things always make me wonder - would a respectable bike company really stake their reputation on a bunch of swiss cheese bolts?

Well, its one of those annoying little things that you eventually realise and then feel compelled to sort out once and for all. Example, wing mirror. One of the bolts is losing its thread. Now i did have a lowside and this clearly impacted on the fitting. Ever since then the bolt is prone to loosening (even with a bit of loctite). But it always happens at the worst time, like riding on the motorway in heavy traffic. So I should replace the bolt really, and why not upgrade?

To be more specific, most of the "swiss cheese" bolts and screws are on non-critical parts (in my experience). Suzuki very well knew what they were doing - crap enough bolts to last for a while but strong enough stuff in other areas to avoid major lawsuits. So in answer to your question. Yes, it is a good upgrade especially if you come to discover all these niggly issues or when you start finding it hard to remove parts due to rusty bolts etc.

If you're not really experiencing any of the above then its probably not necessary.

Your best bet is buy a large mixed bag ~100 bolts in various sizes and when working on the bike replace every bolt you remove. Don't bother going on the rampage replacing all in one go its not worth that much effort.

[Jayneflakes]

I have a full Chewys bolt kit on my bike and can only report good things about it. First of all, it comes with a list of bolts and instructions on where to put them. Each one is of high quality and they look absolutely lovely when in place. The original bolts do corrode over time and start to look manky. One of the bolts on my bike corroded so badly that the head chewed up when I tried to undo it, even with high quality precision tools.

So in my view, Chewys kit makes swapping the bolts an easy and worth while job.

[muzikill]

My bikes motor had them replaced during my rebuild with the chewy kit. Looks great to me and the factory bolts were awful looking on the threads.

[NTECUK]

Wot Elliot said ...

[MJC-DEV]

I have the full Chewys Engine set and they look a lot better than the corroded originals BUT as they are stainless going into aluminium make sure you follow proper precautions such as copper grease and watch the torque settings.
Basically a cosmetic only change, however I have replaced most of the other non-critical bolts with stainless due to rust as you can't get the rusted feckers out otherwise (e.g. oil cooler, front mudguard etc)

[LewSpeight]

thoughts on these?

[MJC-DEV]

You will have trouble stopping these aluminium ones from corroding and going white and furry. Ok if you don't ride much in the rain and def not on salted roads.

I would trust Al bolts for some of the cosmetic parts and maybe light bits, but nothing really structural, and not engine stuff. Disclaimer: IANAE, but I have built a good amount of stuff, and IIRC Al and Fe are roughly similar weight for weight, but not volume for volume.