Grease or no grease, thread lock or not, torque wrench or not….

[2manyoranges]

Well I did a big build of the Grom’s new alloy Transition Scout. I bought the frame in Somerset, and it needed new bearings throughout, which was fine. It’s a job I enjoy. Bish bosh, bearings out and in at shocks, main pivot, rocker arm and lower swing arm. End of stay bearings smoothish so I decided to do those later. I completed the build and went out for a boing test ride - boing boing boing. Clunk. And more clunking. Drat. So I felt the shock and yep, play in the bushings. So new offset bushing from…er…Offset Bushings. And new lower bolt from Windwave. All in Sunday morning, and still clunk. Drat. So I feel everything carefully (not carefully enough it turns out) and decide to do rear stay bearings as a precaution. Halfway through this I decide to check everything over and DUH the main pivot bearing bolt is loose. Tighten that up, and the clunk goes. I put it in last week with the usual recipe of a dab of zinc anti-seize and a dab of blue threadlock but this time it definitely worked loose within minutes. So….out and cleaned, blue threadlock on and a dab of antisieze only on the bolt collar to stop water ingress.

B U T

I go through all the stuff on torque settings grease v no grease etc and am really none the wiser. And also find that NO-ONE is talking about sidethrust. The reason that suspension bolts have a torque setting is not only so they don’t come loose but so that they present the right side loading to the bearings - wrong side load and they will wear really quickly.

Adn I just have no idea - still - about how to get grease and antiseize on the bolts so that there is no water ingress and massive corrosion…and the correct torque so that you get the right sideload. Apart from doing it by feel…which I have been quite good at…

Anyone?

https://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-mechanics/263733-torque-specifications-grease.html