Now lets get to the nitty gritty, and the only things you really need to know. All the bolt torque guides are just that, guides. Most all of them are torque figures for clean dry threads. Don't use dry threads. On all threads that use a torque of ten Foot Pounds and under I Oil them with a light weight oil. Use a low temperature lubricate oil. On all bolts with a called for torque of fifteen Foot Pounds or more, Use a Molybdenum Disulfide grease. Then torque to the figure given in the shop manual. You will find that the torque, for almost every bolt and nut on your motorcycle and some (not many), is given in the shop manual.

Why should you do this? Well, at one time, head gasket failures. After you start using the Molyendeum Disulfide grease... no more blown head gaskets. The idea for the grease from a Honda GL1000 shop manual which said to use it on the head bolt threads. Honda was right ! The oil and the grease make the bolts turn easier. This seems to make things clamp down better. Some may say that we are increasing the torque on the bolt and theoretically they would be right but, I have had excellent results doing this. Lubrication makes assembly and DISASSEMBLY much easier. You have got to remember... sooner or later, this turkey has got to come apart again.

Interestingly, I just read an article, in a major motorcycle magazine, on lubing spark plug threads with anti-seize. Some guy wrote in to ask if the using anti-seize on spark plug threads changed the torque reading. Seems a spark plug manufacturer said to cut torque by one half if you used anti-seize. The guy writing the article checked with several other spark plug manufacturers and all of them seemed to think that was a bad idea. I will have to agree. His sources said to torque the plug to the lower end of the recommended setting, when using anti-seize. I can relate to that.

Here is a chart from NGK on Spark Plug torque, and as a PDF file.

Bolt Test. This got me to thinking. Does lube change the torque significantly ? If you take a ten millimeter, grade 8.8, 1.25 thread, bolt, then put a spacer and nut on it. With the nut loose you can measured the over all length of the bolt. Then torqued it to thirty five foot pounds with a torque wrench. Then you measured it again. 3.022" to start. Then 3.026" after torquing, so we have .004" bolt stretch. Doing the same thing with the bolt threads lubricated with Molybdenum Disulfide grease. The bolt stretched to 3.027". So lubed, we have .005" stretch. That's about a 20% increase.

Now, consider some other things. you will be surprised to find that getting an accurate, repeatable measurement was quite difficult. Things, they kept a'changen ! I also am not really sure how much of a torque increase that extra .001" in bolt stretch really is. This sounds like a great experiment and I'm sure the next time I have five or ten extra free hours with nothing to do, I will look into it ! Till then it's oil for threads with ten foot pounds of torque and below, Molybdenum Disulfide grease for threads with above ten foot pounds of torque, and anti-seize for spark plug threads.

If the shop manual for your engine gives a different procedure, I would follow it, but if all it gives is a torque figure I would lubricate that thread ! Interestingly enough, all the tests I've read indicate it's much better to slightly over torque a bolt then to under torque it. Anyway, that's what I do. Oil or Grease up the threads and torque to the right amount for that size and grade of bolt. Contrary to what you might think, this lubrication will not make the bolt loosen and fall out. Engine vibration or a poor design does that. Remember, a correctly torqued, threaded fastener of the right type, used in a properly engineered assembly, will not come loose... most times, anyway !

I made up a chart of Bolt Torques for US and Metric bolts. I was surprised to find that while US bolt torques seem to be quite standardized, the Metric ones were all over the place. Huge differences, depending on what book you looked in. I never realized this before because I always use the Torque Values given in the Shop Manual for whatever machine I was working on. My advice is to use your Shop Manual. But you want a chart too, don't you.
Here it is as a PDF file too.

I still say USE YOUR SHOP MANUAL !

If a bolt keeps coming loose you might have to remove the flat washer that is under the lock washer. It will also help if you tighten the bolt and then take a hammer and continue to tighten the bolt just a bit with several sharp blows. You are only trying to tighten the bolt, or nut, just a little bit. The important thing is to do it with a sharp rap or two. This tends to lock the bolt in. I don't know the reasons why it works but I can tell you that it does work !
Lots of racers rely on safety wired bolts and nuts to keep things together. The nut or bolt is drilled and wired in such a way that it is physically impossible for the fastener to loosen.