Another thicko question from Jayne

[Jayneflakes]

Hail to thee Mighty Org, I wish to pick the combined brains of the technical types on here, if I may?

I was giving my K3 Pointy a bit of a clean yesterday after a run out and found to my absolute horror some corrosion on some parts. Shock horror, I live on the coast and can expect a little rust on uncovered steel parts, so have allowed for this in my maintenance regime. I regularly clean and oil the bike, using WD40/GT85/TF20 to cover bolt heads and the like.

However, some of the chrome coated bolts that are on show are starting to rust slightly, the suspension linkages look manky and even my grab rail has flaky paint in one place and the alloy underneath that is corroding.

My bike is low mileage (7000M), garaged and generally is in nice condition, but these small flaws upset me.

So possible winter project here, strip bike down (how hard can it really be?) and replace bolts with stainless steel. The cheap steel bolts on my my hugger have corroded and the stainless ones that hold on the double screen still look brand new, so I know that Stainless would look nice.

Is it possible to buy a stainless bolt kit that has every bolt I will need or will I have to strip it down and replace them as I go? Some of those bolts do look some what specialist, so will I be able to get them from a standard bolt shop do you think?

I am opposed to using Aluminium bolts due to the low strength and easy damage factor (although I do use them on my mountain bike for almost every low strength application) and cannot afford to use Titanium, so stainless seems a sensible choice, what is the general opinion here?

Right, off to work fixing mountain bikes. Will check in later and see what seeds of thought the Mighty Org has planted in my fields of study.

It would be wise to get the suspension linkage off and the swingarm and get some grease on the bearing surfaces at least. If you havn't done it, then also strip, clean and grease up the brakes.

I'm not sure about the rest of the problems...some corrosion can't be avoided...unfortunatly, the newer an SV is, the worse the build quality seems to be.

Chewy's do a complete stainless steel bolt replacement kit of the sv.

Link- http://www.chewys-stuff.co.uk/

look under bolt kits, and there are options depending on what year. About £30, IIRC.

if you wanted it to last, you should have bought a Honda...

I've heard fair few ppl talking about ACF-50. its an anti corrosion formula. Its meant to help stop and prevent corrosion on metals and also lubricate.
May wna check it out

http://www.acf-50.co.uk/motorcycle.htm

[Jayneflakes]

Thank you People, the link to the bolt kit is the most awesome thing in the world, thank you for that. Looks like I am going to spend the winter in the garage then... Cool. Glad Carol has the geni now so at least I can have a light in there.

Right, now I just have to think about all of the things I want to do to the bike before Carol gets wind of this and accuses me of being OCD again!

[yorkie_chris]

1/ Use ACF50
2/ Stop worrying about it and ride the bloody thing
3/ Do NOT bugger about with the suspension linkage bolts unless you know more about the loads involved than I do and can select a bolt material which is suitable. Definitely do not just wang a random M10 "oooh shinyshiny" stainless one in there. It might shear off and cause the old cliched big-fiery-ball-of-death.


If you really must bugger about with it, make sure to put copperslip or better yet alloy antisieze paste wherever they go. Stainless can sieze into alloy rather fiercely if put in dry.

Most of bolts around the engine are M6 metric coarse, chewys bolt kit, or local engineering supply will sort you out. (do they have engineering suppliers down near france, all shandy swilling softies innit?). There is plenty to go at just with M6 bolts and a handful of stainless P-clips for brake hoses etc.

[Jayneflakes]

Thanks once again folks.

Good advice about the linkages, Not knowing what goes in there is why I wondered about what I could do. As for riding the bike, still got to pass my test first. Tried to book it on line last Sunday, but failed due to web problems. Will try again soon.

It is gutting to see the bike I have owned for two years rusting away while I piddle around on L Plates, but that is another story.