Standing in the middle of ProBolt’s smaller warehouse I’m surrounded by titanium, stainless steel and aluminium. Bolts and fasteners of every description, stretch for row upon row. I now know how the proverbial kid in the candy store felt.
A box of anodised castellated rear wheel nuts for Ducati’s with single-sided swinging arms is within arms reach. Perhaps one of the most expensive single nuts in the warehouse, yet still cheaper and made from better grade materials than the factory original.
In the far corner, our KTM 1290 is receiving a Pro-Bolt Bolt-up, the name given to the process of replacing numerous tarnished and corroded original bolts, nuts, screws and fixings for higher quality alternatives.
But as usual, I’ve started in the middle of the story and now need to backtrack. Being surrounded by all these Pro-Bolt goodies has me distracted.
Have you tried Pro-Bolt?
I snapped one of the plastic screws that attached the screen on my Tracer 9 GT. I was being lazy and not paying proper attention to what I was doing. The replacement from Yamaha was £3.40. Yes, Yamaha wanted £3.40 for a single plastic screw. I’d searched Amazon and eBay, yet a replacement the correct size with a neatly domed head was nowhere to be found.
I was just about to give up and cough-up the extortionate amount of money Yamaha wanted when my colleague Roger made the off-hand comment, “Have you tried Pro-Bolt?“. Yet, knowing Roger to be a man of few words, he most likely only said “Pro-Bolt” and then went back to whatever it was he was doing.
The smaller of Pro-Bolt’s two warehouses is difficult to describe. I’m surrounded by every conceivable type of fastener, bolt and nut you can imagine, including things such as an engine mounting bolt for a Kalex Moto2 bike, made from titanium – naturally.
There are several different variations of even the humble 10mm bolt. For example, you can have it pre-drilled for racing, or perhaps you need the centre of the bolt head also to accept a spline drive or an Allen key? Then there is the choice of whether you would prefer stainless steel, aluminium or titanium. Maybe you need a specific colour or the bolt coated in DLC (Diamond Like Coating), which is about as hard a coating as you will find anywhere.
Yet, nothing in the warehouse smells industrial. There isn’t a metallic or burnt hydrocarbon odour lingering in the air. Instead, the warehouse is spotless. There is row upon row of fasteners stored in indexed containers. Each row is meticulously clean. No dust, dirt, grime or even an oily mark anywhere.
My host for the day, David Montgomery, explains that Pro-Bolt can trace each item Pro-Bolt stocks back to the mine from which the ore came. It is a part of the quality control necessary not only for Pro-Bolts own quality standards but those needed to supply MotoGP, WorldSBK and BSB teams.
Manufacturing is based in the UK, and the anodising is done in-house. It all sounds so simple until I’m told Pro-Bolt shipped millions of fasteners last year. That is a lot of bolts.
Quality
Race teams have their choice of suppliers. It is an enviable position, yet I sometimes wonder how that applies to replacing the screen bolts on my Yamaha. The answer becomes apparent when comparing the bolts we are removing from the KTM with the Pro-Bolt versions. It isn’t simply a better quality replacement for the factory bolt. It is another step beyond that.
The finishing on all of the fasteners is superb. Not only will they last the lifetime of the bike, but they also will not fur up or seize. The heads of the bolts won’t round off, and on top of that, they won’t tarnish or corrode.
Pro-Bolt fasteners cost more than the ones you can buy from Amazon or eBay. But the ones from the internet rust even sat in the box you purchased them in. Something I’m ashamed to say I know from first-hand experience. The Pro-Bolt replacements are arguably more cost-effective and certainly better value than the factory originals.
Pro-Bolt Bolt-Up
The KTM 1290 is receiving a Pro-Bolt Bolt-Up to help protect it against the winter grime. The fasteners we are replacing are likely to suffer the most from the winter rock-salt, coupled with being in areas where corrosion protection (FS365 or ACF50) is difficult to apply.
Bolt-Ups come in many forms. You can order ready-made kits that range from the interestingly named “Full Monty” kits that will replace the vast majority of the fasteners on your motorcycle down to kits for specific parts. If kits aren’t your thing, there is a catalogue listing some of the 4,000 different fasteners Pro-Bolt stocks.
Pro-Bolt receives a bag of bolts in the post more regularly than you might expect, along with a “match and dispatch” request. And if none of those solutions works for you, there is the “JFDI” option used by race teams and the occasional motorcycle courier.
For the JFDI treatment, you take your bike to Pro-Bolt and ask them to Just “Flipping” Do It, which may take a few days, but when your motorcycle is ready for collection, Pro-Bolt will have replaced almost every nut, bolt, washer and fastener on your bike.
I can understand Race Teams using the JFDI option, but I was a little confused about why a motorcycle courier would use it? It seems that even in this electronic day and age, some things need to be transported without delay.
The cost of a failed delivery or having the bike off the road due to a seized fastener or rounded bolt head was unthinkable. Every fastener had to be high quality and be guaranteed to come undone when needed. Hence the reason the motorcycle courier had taken his bike to Pro-Bolt.
Choices, Choices
If you are preparing your motorcycle for a winter in the garage or a winter on the road, take a look at the condition of the bolts. My KTM 1090 – not the 1290 receiving the Bolt-Up – needs the brakes servicing, so first on my list will be ordering replacement calliper bolts.
The anodising on the factory spline drive fasteners around the tank and headlight hasn’t lasted very long. Some of the heads are starting to fur up and look scabby. They need replacing.
The cheap-as-chips bolts I used to secure the LED auxiliary lights have started to rust. Unfortunately, there is no one to blame for that mistake but myself, so I think I’ll swap them out for black anodised Pro-Bolt replacements.
I feel a winter project coming on, working my way through the bike, replacing the worst looking and most important fasteners as required.
After all, what else am I going to do when it is wet, cold and dark?
Clarity
We purchased some Pro-Bolt fasteners with our own cash money, and Pro-Bolt donated some in exchange for using our KTM 1290 as a pattern for forthcoming Pro-Bolt kits.
Our thanks to Pro-Bolt and especially David Montgomery, who endured no end of questions from me and had an impressive knowledge of where any bolt could be found in the warehouse. With a memory like that, I would strongly advise you don’t play cards with this man.
