Q: "what's the Safety Wire for?"
A: Safety, of course. • To my surprise, every so often a motocrosser will wander by and ask me this question. I enjoy safety wiring things that want to come loose- like the rear engine mounts on my '77 YZ400. Initially when I saw they were gone, I just replaced them, but when they came off and vanished the next time I safety wired them so that there was no question.
Road Racers are made to safety wire all kinds of things so that they cannot come off the bike and cause an accident. Motocrossers generally don't care of something is in the track, unless it's a frozen Elk. But all those Vintage Parts sure are hard to find on the track.
In this case my clutch hub nut came off, and tore the clutch basket to pieces: look at the broken fingers.... so the next time it went back together I safety wired it. Safety Wire is cheap, easy, and satisfying to do. Lots of tough guys are going to say oh you don't need that- and the answer to that is good luck dude. IF I had had that nut safety wired (or locktited®) I wouldn't have had to rebuild the gearbox. I KNOW those parts CANNOT come off now!
-siege
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