I'm replacing my chainrings this weekend and for some reason I have in the back of my mind that I'm not supposed to grease the interface between the "socket" part that interfaces with the rings and only grease the threads of the bolt. Does that make sense and is that true? Common sense (at least to me) would be for me to grease the holes in the rings where the bolts go.

I do, lightly. If you don’t, the chainring bolts/nuts/chainrings can become one piece.

Absolutely grease the bolt threads. I would also grease the undersides of the flanges of the nuts and bolt heads where they contact the chainrings to prevent corrosion and avoid creaks.

Bolt threads=grease, yes...or Loctite 242 which serves the same anti-corrosion duties, but also lightly glues the 2 parts together.

Everything else, flanges, hole bores, etc...Lube is unnecessary, but would not necessarily be harmful if you wanted to use it anyway. You may have to use a chainring bolt tool or very large flat bladed screwdriver to keep the nut from turning as you tighten the bolt head though. So, there is that to look out for.

I fasten aluminum bolts to 5nm with Loctite242 though 5-7nm is usually what is recommended with aluminum bolts. IIRC about 12-15-ish newton meters torque is recommended for steel chainring bolts. The Parktool website has a comprehensive table if you are interested.

IME it's best not to take a lubed bolt to the maximum recommended torque value because the lube makes it so that the running torque & all other sources of friction much less & you risk breaking the bolt/hole/threads/part from overtorquing. In chainring bolts, at least, the bolt head will tend to seperate from tension force before rotational force accumulates enough to reach the intended torque value.

Thanks everyone.

I grease (Tef-Gel, actually) the male threads only.

I replaced my original stainless steel chainring hardware with titanium. There's no corrosion, but theoretically the titanium can "cold-weld" to itself. I have not had this problem. They look nice as well.


Stainless originals on the left; titanium on the right

I used locktite on a stripped chainring bolt and it has caused no problem for two years and counting.

I vote for greasing not only the threads of the chainring bolt but also the flanges. The application of the grease on the flanges needs to be light though because if applied too heavily the squeezeout can attract a lot of road dirt and necessitate lots of extra cleaning.

Having a Pedro's micro grease gun with Rock-N-Roll Super Web Grease is awesome for this application. You can apply a tiny bit of the viscous grease right where you want it. Strangely, even when torquing chainring bolts regularly it is still possible that they might work themselves loose. I have come home from rides several times over the last few years and not noticed that where I should have 5 chainring bolts, I mysteriously now only have four.

Your spider sense is absolutely correct- grease only the bolt in front and leave the nut in the back bone dry.
Otherwise the nut will spin when you try to tighten. You will run out to buy the special tool to hold the nut from spinning. This will work on 4 of the 5 nuts. The fifth nut will spin no matter how hard you try to hold it. Now in desperation you will spend $25 to buy a set of dual hex crank bolts.
Or you can just leave the nut bone dry and avoid all that.

The "Chainring Nut Wrench" works fine, provided you align it so firm finger pressure keeps it in the slot.

EDIT: If it still spins, you can spend a boatload and get THIS TOOL!

So....I removed the bolts and they were dry on the outside and it looked like the threads had threadlock on them. This was the first time they were removed in five years so I figured keeping them dry on the outside was a good move. Cleaned out the threadlock, greased the threads and put them on. No problems with spinning and torqued them to 6nm, a tad below the 7-8nm spec'ed since they were greased. Hopefully I can get out for a ride tomorrow.

I had a creaking problem from the BB area that troubled me for awhile that was caused by the chain ring mounting surfaces. I cleaned thoroughly all the mounting surfaces, lightly grease them, and used loctite 202 on the chain ring bolt threads. Occasionally, I disassemble the chain rings for cleaning without problems. No loosing of bolts either.