I'm Just in the process of changing the chainrings on my XTR chainset for the first time, and noted there was a lot of thread locker on the bolts. I don't normally bother with anything other than a dab of grease but I have had bolts come loose before. I've also heard people say that they NEVER go near it for chainring bolts. Any comments?

grease.

I don't bother but if you got it to hand you may as well use it?

coppaslip / grease.

Not so bad for the small ring bolts, but for the others it's difficult to "grasp" the nut by it's slot, even if you have a proper tool. So no, just a little grease and nip them up in a pattern going around. I started carrying a spare bolt in my pack – toolkit.

A "hot" tip I was given about loctite-stuck bolts is to heat them with a lighter which softens the loctite.

The factory fitted bolts took some real effort to get off actually, which I guess should be a warning. At least XTR bolts are Torx both sides, much easier to get decent purchase.

I am from now on!

lost two and cracked my only front chainring 4 miles from the car on Sunday. 'Scooting' home soon became tedious only out weighed by over taking people on the downs with no gears ;o)

yes ever since having one come loose many years ago.

Haven't previously, only as I hadn't got any thread-lock, but now I have some, everythings going to be threadlocked! Admittedly with the low strength 222 stuff, not the full strength stuff.
Why? Cause I've lost chainring bolts before now, and destroyed a nicely expensive Middleburn middle ring due to it.

Coppaslip everytime here. No probs in years of use.

On this subject though – and not wishing to hijack the thread – why oh why did Shimano switch to Torx bolts after years of 5mm allen heads? I understand the point above about potentially better purchase etc but it's an odd sized Torx (T30 if I recall?) and no multi tool manufacturer I knew of at the time had a T30 on their tool. If you don't overtighten a 5mm, they're just fine. T25 I could have lived with being the same size as disc bolts, but T30 just pissed me (and I'm sure, plenty of others) off.

(Admittedly, I was doing the Transalp that year & it was just one more tool I didn't want to pack every day!)

You need a T30 & a T40 for the main bolts! I had to buy a set from homebase as I didn't have any either. Whilst it's a pain if you dont have the tools, I do feel that it's a much better system that the chainring tool plus 5mm allen bolt.

"why oh why did Shimano switch to Torx bolts after years of 5mm allen heads?"

T27 on XT I thought – yes it hacks me off too.

No. But a dab of Tippex on all critical bolts as witness marks. Only takes a quick glance before each ride to make sure that nothing is getting loose.

Not anymore, after undoing them and trying to do them up again…

The loctite stayed on the bolts and made them difficult to tighten – they just rotated even though I have the special Shimano pin tool 😥