| Author | Message | ||
     S3ter |
Road from Norfolk, VA to DC this last weekend. When I got to a buddies house we were admiring my bike when I noticed that a front crankcase bolt was gone. Got a flashlight and looked in crankcase hole and sure enough bolt was broken off in crankcase. Not a big deal. But then I noticed that the remaining threaded piece of the bolt stuck out the right side of the engine to hold the front shock brace in place. I was afraid to ride the bike 300 miles home (back roads) so I put the bike in a Uhaul and took the highway home. Questions are: How dangerous is it to ride the bike to a shop to get it fixed? And is there anyone in SE Virginia who could recommend a good bike shop/machine shop that can pull this bolt fragment out of my crankcase? Broke off a motor mount in the head last year and local HD dealer charged $550 in labor to remove the head, send it out to an unnamed machine shop and reinstall a $5 bolt. Doubt my HD dealer could do this job. What are they going to do? Remove the engine and send it to a machine shop? Any advice appreciated. | ||
| Spiderman |
First, pics will help, so we know which bolt it is. Second, It is possible to remove the bolt without takin apart the engine. But you may need to take the motor out the frame OR have a really experienced machinist do it my hand... | ||
| Psyclown |
Is there enough exposed that you could take the cover off and try and turn it with some heat and a set of channel locks? | ||
| Firemanjim |
Are you talking about the bolts that go through crankcase and hold front shock mount on---they are through bolts and should come right out,not threaded into engine itself.Put in a new one. | ||
| Nallac |
They are as Firemanjim has said, bolts that go right thru the cases and thread/bolt into the shock mount. I wondered why i couldn't tighten the bottom bolt up on mine?, finally decided to find out why after 5months of ownership. Found it had snapped in the shock mount and was only held in with f'n silicone.Don't know how long it had been like that????. Just watch out if you take the mount off yourself, the bike will drop, you need to jack the bike under the rear shock mount. | ||
| S3ter |
Firemanjim, Nallac You guys are my heroes. So you are telling me that the threads only go into the front shock mount and not into the crankcase itself. That is easy. I can just suspend the rear frame, disconnect shock from front shock mount and remove front shock mount. Mount will come off with broken bolt still in place. That should be easy to twist out with some vise grips. This is great. Thanks. | ||
| Kalali |
That must be great relief. I had a similar scare last year when I snapped the oil drain plug and the oil poured out. I had this visions of the bolt fallen into the oil pan and having to remove a lot of stuff to get to it. When I bought the new plug I saw it was hollow. It took me five minutes to get the broken bolt out with little persuasion. | ||
| S3ter |
Did work this weekend. Pretty easy fix. Replaced other shock mount bolt while I was at it. $6 for 2 bolts. When shock was off I took the opportunity to raise ride height a little (adjustable Penske). Still a little scary thinking about riding the bike over 300 miles with this situation present. When I got the front shock mount off, the broken bolt was sticking out about 1/2". Broke were threads meet unthreaded part of bolt. Grabbed broken bolt with vise grips, then noticed I could unthread bolt by hand. Don't know if I would have bought the farm if this came out on trip. Still 1 mount bolt left with small bolt to voltage regulator/exhaust mount. But still just a little scary. |
