I have a 2005 Fatboy which has done a bit over 40,000 km. 9 months ago whilst cleaning and inspecting the bike I found the left hand high tensile bolt on the lower fork bracket, that clamps the fork had sheared. I replaced it. checked the other side and it looked fine.
Last weekend whilst riding along I got showered with oil. On inspection, the right hand bolt had sheared (the one I did not replace). Then the top section of the fork has unthreaded it self and been pushed down under load and exposed the O-ring seals, and that's when oil went everywhere, including all over my face.
Never been in any sort of accident, and never had any work done to the front end, other than changing fork oil. To my mind, for both bolts to snap, either the bolts were faulty or the assembly torque was wrong. I can't think of any other reason for this.
Has anyone else experienced similar issues?
Sheared bolt -
What it looked like when I removed the headlight and front pannel -
Mungrel.
fuckin lucky bud :/ probably shitty predelivery insp!!!
jokes ......
more likely its a softy
Thanks Wozza.
I went down to the Harley Dealer here and brought 2 new bolts. They also confirmed they have seen this before. Think I will turf them now and go to a specialist bolt store tomorrow. Pretty piss poor. Certainly gave me a bit of a scare when I realized it was oil in my face at 100 kph. Didn't know what was going on at the time!
Cheers.
