"Lock wire"-"Safety wire", cheap insurance plus is faun to do

[Patineto]

Many "New school" Aircraft/helicopter/rocket/industry/steam turbines ,etc even if some mechanics think/assure is not necessary or not on their data sheet.

Pretty much every serious racing vehicle has it as a redundant safety measure holding every bolt, by regulations but more than anything because it make sense.

NOte, Sorry Not FAun, FUN to do..

 

[Patineto]

If the topic interests you, check his other Videos, wow this guy is really good and so, so very patient..

I race prep a few rally vehicles, mostly KTM640 ADV (I'm not even close to be a/the team mechanic, but I love safety wiring so the main heads let me, plus it takes for ever too, so they can be doing something more important..

But not even the most complicated task I ever encounter is 20% as difficult, tricky or critical as his work.. (plus we need to pass safety, but not complied with a whole book of standards..

Very useful skill for a off road vehicle if you ask me..

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Do you have to buy special fasteners taht are drilled for safety wires or can you modify your own fasteners? I'd imagine it's very difficult to drill small holes in the heads of bolts.

 

[cruisermatt]

Do you have to buy special fasteners taht are drilled for safety wires or can you modify your own fasteners? I'd imagine it's very difficult to drill small holes in the heads of bolts.

You can buy bolts pre-drilled but its expensive, it's not hard to drill them yourself.

My dad does this all the time for his race car. I think he uses 1/16" bits, just buy a huge pack of them as its pretty easy to break them as you can probably imagine.
And you should build a block like this to you can hold the bolts in the vise without damaging the threads, to the right of the picture is jig made for this but I've never found it hard to free-hand drill bolt heads.

 

[Patineto]

Do you have to buy special fasteners taht are drilled for safety wires or can you modify your own fasteners? I'd imagine it's very difficult to drill small holes in the heads of bolts.

Sadly Yes you have the drill the bolts on the OEM fasteners, safety wire bolts are usually very expensive, fine thread SAE, certified for this and that..

Usually a old quality drill press and a vise can do the job, is actually not that hard just matter of patience and lubrication, I usually only drill two bores on the HEX heads (Usually the proper bolts have three bores) the hex as easy since the faces are flat (even if you need to drill them on a angle, you just pre drill straight down for the first millimeter or so

The allen's are the one that are a pain since the heads are round and the drill bit tent to bow/break all over even if is pre drill..

Really simple trick.

Stupid not to do it, if you ask me.

 

[Patineto]

Sorry for the shaky Iphone pictures..

Hopefully you get the idea of how well made this fasteners are, a insertion hole on each facet of the bolt..

And then a "Cutter pin" Castle nut, just in case, no joke, all body, almost no treads (basically Straight body is much stronger), very, very expensive to keep a inventory of so many sizes and lengths.

I trust them to hole the drive shaft on our range rover even if they were 10mm in diameter.

 

[mrsleeve]

turbo bolts on my brothers 2.3l ford dd kept backing out. So the last time we had it apart I took a lot of time and run got them safty wired on and all has been good, yeah its a pia, but sometimes its the only way

 

[Patineto]

Three things I trust my life completely...

My old BMW GS, Shimano Deore XT Thumb shifters and Akrobins..

I'm totally addicted, I have about 220 of them (in like 8 different sizes) and only three of them have crack/broken, Totally my fault 500% more load that they are design for, just incredible quality, specially this very model..

h notice the Tiny Hole at the end of the crack, very important so the crack those not dissipate or continue on a straight line (From my days of fixing Freebees when I was a boy..)

 

[maxamillion2345]

Like you said, almost no one uses safety wire for normal applications and for most applications it's not needed. There are some nice pliers out there to do this right though. Surprised you haven't mentioned that.

 

[Patineto]

Like you said, almost no one uses safety wire for normal applications and for most applications it's not needed. There are some nice pliers out there to do this right though. Surprised you haven't mentioned that.

Because I'm a firm believer in human autonomy and like to demonstrate you can do this by your se look forward with out such so much tool codependancy.

Besides many of the experts still do it by feel because the say the wire suffers , essentially and they can be more preciss..

I'm not trying to sell you anything or ta me away nothing (well the horrible toxic locktyde) but that is your choice

 

[maxamillion2345]

Mmmm green locktite