Service Tip - Critical Fasteners
Mike RoenDescription
Here’s a tip about critical fasteners and what to check on your Harley-Davidson. In this short video, Mike Roen takes a minute to remind us about some often overlooked critical fasteners on your Harley Davidson.
Harley Davidson handlebar riser bolts should be checked at every major service interval as a critical fastener. Handlebar riser bolts should be installed with a little red Loctite. However, these two large bolts can become loose as handlebar riser bushings wear or shrink with age.
The heads of the riser bolts can be found on the bottom side of the upper triple tree. The bolts pass through the riser bushing sleeves and into the handlebar risers. Tighten these bolts with a 3/4″ socket or box end of a combination wrench. The best tool for these critical fasteners or combination of tools to use for tightening these bolts will depend on the year and model of the Harley Davidson you are working on. On Softail models, a long, 3/8″ wobble extension or a 3/8″ swivel adapter is often helpful in conjunction with a 3/4″ socket.
Every bolt, nut, and screw on your Harley Davidson is important. Critical fasteners should be considered to be hardware: if it loosens or fails, it can leave the rider in immediate danger. It is good practice, during or after performing regular maintenance, to go around the motorcycle with a handful of wrenches and check the tightness of any hardware that is accessible without disassembly.
It is most beneficial to check critical fasteners or hardware with a torque wrench. However, if a correct torque wrench is not available or will not fit into an area, it is only important that the hardware is checked.
Critical fasteners include:
– Motor mount and motor stabilizer hardware
– Front and rear axle nuts and pinch clamp hardware
– Handlebar top clamp hardware
– Exhaust mounting hardware
– Foot & hand control hardware
– Gear shift lever and linkage hardware
– Brake caliper mounting hardware
– Wheel spokes
– Handlebar control hardware
– Swingarm axis nut
– Shock mounting hardware
Hey, it's Mike Rohan. Fix my hog. Got a little tech tip for you here doing the full service on your motorcycle. You're reading through the manual, it says check critical faster as well. Every nut and bolt on a motorcycle is critical. But here's one that kind of gets overlooked. Uh, you got the handlebar riser bushings here. So, and here's a shot of what they look like and, uh, here's what I see happens. Um, people sometimes believe it or not, they don't ride their motorcycle to a vent. They put it in a trailer, they tie it down, they tie it down around the handlebars and then they trailer their motorcycle of 500 miles 1000 miles before you know it, you know, these handlebar rider bushings feel like they're getting clapped out. But one thing they're kind of overlooking is over time. This nut under here, you know, needs to be torque, same thing on the other side, you turn it over there, you torque that nut and it's kind of something that gets overlooked because it kind of sneaks up on you over time. You know, you don't realize that. Oh jeez. Now, my handlebar, riser bushings are getting more and more loose. So, check that out. If they are clapped out, there's a lot of updated aftermarket riser bushing kits you can put in. So, all right. Check out Fix my hug. Thanks for tuning in.
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