Looking for some recommendations on what are the best ways to keep suspension pivots working properly.

I’ve got a Canyon Nerve AM and although I’ve probably only done about 20 rides on it, some of the bolts that hold the bearings in the pivots have come loose. One in particular was quite bad but my question is what could I do to prevent this happening again? I’m thinking along the lines of threadlocking the bolts but there’s different types and I don’t want stuff that’s not going to allow them to come undone again!

Also, what is the best way to maintain them? I’ve had a few creaking noises and the amount of water getting into these areas lately can’t do them any favours. In fact, if the creaking comes back again what can I do to the pivots in case it’s them?

Any tips/advice much appreciated. Cheers

If the bolts are coming loose, I’d guess the bearings are already seized and are turning the bolts loose as the suspension moves through its travel. How easy is access to the bearings? I’d want to remove them and give them all a good check and clean. Pop the seals off and flush them out, check they feel ok, the repack with a good water resistant grease. The finish line lithium stuffs pretty good.

If its a brand new bike then I would be getting onto canyon- bearings shouldn’t be seizing with that little use, or it could be that the bolts weren’t thread locked with loctitie out of the workshop.

When my FS was new, I had a bolt come loose and cause a creak. Loctite fixed it.

With cartridge bearings on the pivots, I typically take the rear suspension apart once a year (during a winter cold snap) and clean everything. I take the seal off of the bearings and clean out the grease. I usually use WD-40 as a solvent to get the old grease out, then a little carb cleaner. If you use any sort of water based degreaser, make darn sure that you dry the bearings thoroughly with a hair dryer or something. Once dry, repack with good grease; I just use Park polylube. Suspension pivot bearings don’t move a lot (like hubs or bottom brackets) so the bearings don’t have to be super smooth. My original bearings lasted 5 or 6 years. YMMV, of course.

You want a medium strength thread locker on the bolts, like Loctite 242 or the equivalent in another brand. Most brands use blue to indicate medium strength. Red is usually high strength and would be too hard to disassemble for suspension.

I have some Permatex threadlock in a gel form that I really like. Its a lot easier to put it where you want as it doesn’t run like the liquid 242 and get everywhere. I think Loctite makes a chapstick-like one but I’ve never seen it.

JoeG has some good advice there.

On my Nerve XC I did similar after 8 very wet months. The bearings on the seatstay had more muck in them than grease. They still worked fine though I’m not sure for how much longer.

If the AM is anything like the XC the bearings are easy to get to apart from the main pivot, which has cover, caps and a circlip behind the bolt.

Here’s an exploded diagram for yours with the recommended loctite strengths:
http://www.canyon.com/downloads/supportcenter/nerve_am_10.pdf

Loctite chapstick waxy one is the one I use. When doing more than one thread. As said above, doesn’t run everywhere.

Loctite blue chapstick style one for me too lasted years and its blue like the factory applied stuff.