Awesome plan. I wondered about stuff like the mufflers and bags. Any idea why those mufflers? Were they different sounding or just for a different look?
Yes, welcome to the world of our fasteners. Since a bunch of us owners only own the one brand of bike, we tend to think of these decisions like the thread locker as being somewhat exclusive to the brand. The truth is that the more I've looked, the more I see thread locker patches on all kinds of new fasteners and even plumbing parts.
The stuff on our fasteners is a dry, pre-cured compound, coated on the fasteners from the manufacturer. Upon installation, the locking compound is activated by the shearing and mixing in the threads. Once it sets, it provides the locking feature. If you buy any NoS screws for your bike, the dreaded orange patches will be found on almost all of them.
Here is the product: Precote 80
https://www.precoteusa.com/products/precote-80Like many of the things on these bikes, the engineers so overshot the target that we're left dealing with these blasted fasteners even 20+ years later. Hey, they didn't come off, right?
The trick is heat, lots of heat. Probably more heat than any of us think. I believe it has to be above 350F (175C) before it releases. I often use a propane torch with self-fabricated heat shields (piece of metal sheet with a hole drilled to act as a mask around the fastener). For places where powdercoat or paint is at risk, a really big soldering iron gets used that was bought for stained glass windows. It's slow but, has done the job in the past.
I was renewing the handlebar rubber isolators on one of the bikes a few weeks ago. The heads stripped hopelessly. I drilled the heads off and ended up having to pull the handlebar riser studs as well. I could not get the stumps to back out.
Into the lathe they went. I chucked them way out so little heat transferred through the jaws. Slowly spun the chuck at 300 RPM and used the propane torch to heat the shank. I wanted blood. Eventually the Precote 80 turned black and started to smoke out of the threads. At that point, the remains of the screws backed out with zero effort. It probably didn't need to get
that hot but, it worked.
So--yeah--if it's something you can pre-heat, do it. If it gets away and has to have the head drilled off, heat the stump with a vengeance. It will release.
