Quick question... In the workshop manual, on the torque pages, Ducati lists greases and thread lockers for the specific jobs. What is the very vague SOLID thread locker referring to? Thanks
I think it’s probably referring to high strength, red Loctite. Give an example of where it’s used might help narrow it down.
I'm going to pick up a stick of Loctite 248 (blue) from Halfords tomorrow (£6.99 reduced from £7.00 "save 0%"). I reckon my tubes must be 25+ years old! Where I figure a thread needs loctiting, I'll use that. If I should happen to take an engine apart - which I don't expect to ever do again - I'd get the red. Needs heating to 500°F (whatever that is in Celsius). I suppose I'd use that on stuff like, e.g. flywheel bolts, main bearings, conrod bolts. Whatever spins fast enough and is safe to play a blowtorch over. Not that I've ever had a nut or bolt slacken off if new, clean, and torqued, using blue. On the other hand I never built engines for more than, say, 7000rpm.
A few examples; -Bolt holding sidestand to crankcase -Sidestand sensor bolt -Tail light retaining bolt -Bolt securing fusebox to frame -Nut securing Bowden cables to exhaust hose guide Maybe a putty of some kind?
If using any liquid on those, I'd use loctite blue. None of those would need red. If it wasn't for all the bolts I'd think they meant locknuts. Otherwise I'd think lock washers.
Loctite (Henkel) is all about numbers for the last 25-ish years, not colours. Have a look here: https://www.henkel-adhesives.com/uk/en/products/industrial-adhesives/threadlockers.html
Back in the day, I used L243 for Blue and L271 for Red on motion picture cameras. It is still my goto for red and blue. There are so many specialty Loctite products available. Look at how many are listed in the workshop manual... (222,243,510,648,577,601, 10?, and SOLID)
Not sure that chatGPT is trawling good data about 'solid' being the strongest threadlock as that's a very vague & non-technical reference. Think I'll scour the Henkel site to check...
I asked ChatGPT if the term ‘solid’ could be a mistranslation from Italian to English. Yes — the term “solid” is almost certainly a mistranslation or non-standard rendering of “strong/permanent” in the original Italian. The best practice is to interpret “solid thread locker” in Ducati manuals as “high-strength thread locker,” unless a specific product (like Loctite 270) is explicitly stated.
Ducati replied to my question asking what Solid Threadlocker is: "We would like to inform you you that our service manuals (Workshop Manuals) are intended for our mechanical staff who has the experience required to carry out the operations described in the manual." OK, case closed...
