How To Safety Wire Your Bike

A couple of guys on this great forum showed some interest on the topic "safety wiring". So I thought let's start a new thread about this.

First some basic rules:
Do not kink, nick or mutilate the wire. Use some high quality INOX bright drawn steel (sorry, in german it's called "blank gezogen". I'm sure Phl can help). Do not overstress the wire or twist it too tightly. Install the wire that it will tend to tighten the bolt. Try to install it closely around the bolt and not over it. Best is to tighten the wire when twisting, after installation there should be some tension on it. Use a good twisting tool (I use Stahlwille, it does not hurt the safety wire). Upper wire should enter the bolt's hole. Leave at least 6 twists on the free end. Make sure nobody gets hurt from the sharp ends. Try to find the shortest distance, the shorter the wire is placed, the better. Don't hestitate to redo the wiring if it looks ....... It takes a bit of time to get it done nicely. You'll see on the pictures below that a lot of wirings on my bikes can be improved. I am an impatient person! Do not retorque the bolts to get a tension on the wire: this is a core sin and will be punished in purgatory!

In the military service, we had exact specs about twists per centimeter, ccw or cw twisting and so on. IMHO this should not apply to motorcycles, too many rules make life just more difficult.

Okay, here is my first example: The Oil Plug
I really like the NCR style oil plugs (image 1). But they have some disadvantages. The big 14mm hex allen hole prevents the aluminium plug from being hurt, but nobody on the track has such a key in his toolbox. And the big hole tends to collect a lot of water. Also the position of the safety wire hole is always wrong

So i bought a Titanium oil plug from MotoCorse, installed it on the bike and marked its position after fully tightening it. Then I milled two slots into the plug and drilled a safety wire hole (diameter 1.5mm).

Now I can secure the plug the right way, the wire really prevents the plug from loosening. Since it's Ti, the hex hole can be made smaller and no surface protection against corrosion is needed after this work.

If the wire has any other contact to other surfaces than the bolts attached, I use shrink tubes for protection from unwanted scratches. And it's a cheap way to get a NASA look

1. Front caliper bolts
2. Blockoff plate
3. SL rear hugger mounting bolts

Sometimes I use safety wire just to mark that bolts are properly torqued, then wires just prevent bolts from getting lost (very good in the monocoque/airbox ).

1: LH side h-cyl cover
2: Excenter pinch bolts

And often wires just help me installing small nifty little bits from falling into the vast unknow space between engine and exhaust. Front under the dashboard is also a very unplesant space to loose a bolt....

1: Pieces to mount the shift tech subrame

Here two examples of "I don't want to lose these bolts"...

Phl said:

nice work!

i am waiting for the first ...... to say that you just wanna show off

Click to expand...

Dear Phl
No ...... required, my neighbour (retired gov. service provider) just told me that he's going to sue me for the noise of me and my GF's bike when driving out of the garage in the morning, I am totally pissed and I really don't know what to do

@Phl: I've only found thin grade 2 Titanium wires. I guess they are used for welding. Anyway they are far to brittle for safety wiring

@AntiHero: Nope, PVC washers to protect the CF.

@wfoduck: I use an old jig I found on the swiss version of ebay. You'll find a picture here: http://ducati1299.com/ducati-1199/21106-drilling-front-axle-but-safety-wire.html
But many thanks for the info about Moto-D! This little tool looks quite promising, I just ordered one and let you know whether it's cool

@GunMoto: I have Stahlbus valves installed, they do not sell predrilled banjo bolts and since they are anodized, I didn't want to drill a hole into them. I use tiny amount of locktite.

@Prince Albert: Rotobox - I still love them. Okay, most people say they are but ugly

If you are new to this topic, I'd like to suggest you two spots to start with. Oil drain plug and oil filter housing is often checked before getting permission to ride on European race tracks. Easy to be done and lots of fun.

You can drill the filter housing bolts yourself, if it doesn't look great, don't you worry. Nobody will ever see it except the track marshall, and he doesn't care

KraiiTech oil drain plug adaptor is a bit of a luxury, you can also drill two little holes into the plastic near the plug and safety wire it there. The OEM drain plug is aluminium, and not anodized. Very easy to drill holes into it, no special tools needed.