Loctite - The answer to a problem that no one had. I'm guessing Bitcoins inventor had a twin brother that invented Loctite. Loctite has caused me more problems than it ever solved. I guess good old lock washers were not sexy enough. No way I'm putting that stuff on a push rod, fishing rod or a curtain rod. And get off my lawn

 

Tell us how you really feel!

 

I’ve used red loctite on umptidozen pushrods and never had a single issue with it. Will continue to do so. To each their own but if you have ever experienced a jam nut backing off and a pushrod shortening itself up going down the road and suddenly an exhaust valve doesn’t open anymore, well, loctite and the mild issue of being a pain in the *** it takes to remove when making changes not so bad.

 

"...some of the early adjustables the jam nut would crack..."

Some of the not-so-early nuts too. I have a '17 Ultra Limited with 78,500mi with an SE stage 2 installed at about 20,000 and recently the jamnut on one of the pushrods broke into 3 pieces going down the road causing catastrophic engine damage. I have it at a local shop getting an S&S 124ci kit put in and hopefully the heads aren't damaged (they haven't pulled them off yet so don't know their condition but I know something got in the rear cylinder on top of the piston as it damaged the spark plugs, breaking off pieces of the threads). Anyway - as it stands right now it's gonna be about $6,000 parts/labor/tax. The cam lobes are showing signs of wear also so my confidence in Harley parts has declined significantly. I always knew they weren't the best but I thought adequate at least. I had 86,000 on my 2010 Ultra Classic with no real problems and 78,500 on current bike and this the first major breakdown and first ever time broke along the road but it's a doozy. All for a little nut. The S&S is more expensive of course but it's in stock whereas even if I did go with a Harley 119 kit it's at least 45 days out so, no. I ride in the cold as long as roads are dry and mostly salt free at least so I don't want to wait that long. It's worth it to me for piece of mind of a much lesser chance of this happening again because we plan on keeping it for a long time yet.

As far as loctite, do what you feel; it's your bike. I did a lot of my own work with my Ultra Classic, never used loctite and never had a problem but evidently guys who do use it don't have problems either. My problem had nothing to do with it one way or another. The post about the early jamnuts cracking just caught my eye and I had to tell what happened. Quality simple hardware is usually underrated but extremely important.

 

200,000 miles on an Evo with adjustable pushrods. I never used Loctite and never had one come loose.