First (Small) Failure

Bevelheadmhr · Apr 20, 2025

On a fastish ride today, I couldn't change gear, in fact I 'lost' the gear lever.. Pulled over to find the linkage rod had come adrift, having lost a bolt. Had to ride the last few miles stuck in 4th gear. Luckily its Easter Sunday and traffic was light. Took 5 minutes to find a suitable cap head bolt and plenty of locktite, and all was well again..

Rode the last few miles home like this..

Missing bolt holding the front link rod rose joint

peebee · Apr 20, 2025

Good job it didn't dig in.

TonyA · Apr 20, 2025

Bevelheadmhr said:
On a fastish ride today, I couldn't change gear, in fact I 'lost' the gear lever.. Pulled over to find the linkage rod had come adrift, having lost a bolt. Had to ride the last few miles stuck in 4th gear. Luckily its Easter Sunday and traffic was light. Took 5 minutes to find a suitable cap head bolt and plenty of locktite, and all was well again..

Rode the last few miles home like this..

Missing bolt holding the front link rod rose joint

Glad to hear nothing bad happened.

BLIGHTYBRIT/SF · Apr 21, 2025

Join the club , no loose bolt on mine , just sheared off , I gave the old one to the quality control guys at TVS norton when they drove 200 miles to see me ( well the bike ) on ways the 961 could be improved ,think the TVS ones are slightly different, & Stu at “ Motorvated “ has his own improved version

kev · Apr 21, 2025

BLIGHTYBRIT/SF said:
Join the club , no loose bolt on mine , just sheared off , I gave the old one to the quality control guys at TVS norton when they drove 200 miles to see me ( well the bike ) on ways the 961 could be improved ,think the TVS ones are slightly different, & Stu at “ Motorvated “ has his own improved version
View attachment 119326 View attachment 119327

My bike's at Stu's now and the mod he does has been fitted to mine so hopefully no issues for me!

Bevelheadmhr · Apr 21, 2025

peebee said:
Good job it didn't dig in.

Luckily it happened on a roundabout, so was leaning over the other way. I assume the Stu solution is to fit a larger link rod/rose joint?

Clive · Apr 23, 2025

Very disappointing; this is an old and very common issue caused by the threads being cut and creating a fracture point. Usually it is on the shoulder rather than the thread itself; looks here like the nuts locked together have created the stress. One of the issues I highlighted to TVS when they had my bike to examine - my modified one has rose joints, a female thread tapped into the ends of the rod and a piece of threaded rod Locktited into it. Lots of info in old threads on the subject.

Fast Eddie · Apr 23, 2025

Clive said:
Very disappointing; this is an old and very common issue caused by the threads being cut and creating a fracture point. Usually it is on the shoulder rather than the thread itself; looks here like the nuts locked together have created the stress. One of the issues I highlighted to TVS when they had my bike to examine - my modified one has rose joints, a female thread tapped into the ends of the rod and a piece of threaded rod Locktited into it. Lots of info in old threads on the subject.

The failure on the TVS bike that’s the topic of this thread was just a missing bolt Clive… not the rod breakage, which hopefully at least, seems fixed.

Clive · Apr 23, 2025

Ah yes right ta Nigel - was trying to read, comprehend and multitask with work. That's never going to go well is it?

At the end of my first 'long' ride into London I had to visit a hardware store to replace all the bolts which had unscrewed themselves and dropped off......

First (Small) Failure

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