Button head bolts

[tofast]

Ok I found out that the tastynut bolt wont work. I like the look of the stainless steel button head bolts. My problem are they strong enough. Is the head to weak or not. I dont like the look of the standerd allen head. Any help would be kind. And one more thing 18-8 or 316 which is better and why.

[bwringer]

I use button head stainless steel bolts on my GS850G valve cover:


They do look cool, but the main reason I like them is that I can take the valve cover off in about 10 minutes with one tool -- the long 4mm ball end allen wrench you see in the photo. (I also replaced the tank hold-down bolts with button heads). The small hex and the small tool also keep me from over-torqueing the bolts and squashing the silicone Real Gasket valve cover gasket -- the silicone gasket calls for just 15 INCH-pounds of torque (1-1/4 foot-pound).

I'm still not really sure why I painted the valve cover wrinkle black. I guess I was bored one day. I'm sorta stuck with it now.

McMaster-Carr carries button heads in 18-8 stainless steel. Unless you're riding your GS through chemical waste dumps on a regular basis, the cheaper stainless will stand up fine to weathering. The more expensive grades of stainless are intended for really awful high temperature, high corrosion environments, like acid pumps and such. You MUST use anti-sieze on any stainless bolts that go into aluminum.

Stainless bolts are actually far stronger than the cheddar cheese bolts used throughout most of the bike. However, the stainless is harder and more brittle, so be aware of that. Fasteners that have been specially hardened or heat treated should not be replaced with stainless (such as wheel/axle hardware, engine mounting bolts, internal engine fasteners, etc.).

I got the bolts from McMaster-Carr. They have great prices as long as you don't mind buying in their quantities. (The valve cover bolts were 6mm thread X 40mm length.)

http://mcmaster.com

The Real Gasket is from our friend Harold:

http://realgaskets.com/files/motorcycle.htm

[bwringer]

One other quick note:

If you're replacing case bolts, the button heads are too wide for many spots, so you should use the standard style allen heads.

McMaster-Carr has technical drawings of their bolts that show the head diameter if you need to check.

[tofast]

Thanks for the info it helped out alot

[Planecrazy]

I'm still not really sure why I painted the valve cover wrinkle black. I guess I was bored one day. I'm sorta stuck with it now.

I really like the black, Brian! Now if you continue the look into other parts of the engine you'll tie it all together.

Regards,