The Long Rider - The Long Rider

(July 26, 2014) Not all fasteners on your bike are of equal importance. Yes, that’s kind of obvious; but the lesson really hit me this week. During a 7,400 mile ride earlier this month to the western US and Canada, I had some fasteners fall off my bike. I knew of the one from the windshield, but discovery that two others had fallen out happened only yesterday.

After letting the bike sit for a couple of weeks while I caught up on work and recovered from a cold, I finally got out for a ride yesterday. I decided to stop by Jockeys Cycle Inc. in Morrisville and tell the guys about my ride and ask them about some problems I had with the bike on my ride. I told Kevin and Blake about an oil leak (transmission, methinks), the speedometer and tachometer failing three times, the windshield screw going missing, etc. I was about to leave to go to work when I remembered that I wanted to ask Kevin about an unfamiliar vibration I was feeling through my left footboard. I told him I began noticing it when I rolled over some railroad tracks in Sidney, Nebraska. (I remember thinking to myself that it felt like my engine was coming loose. Just a fleeting thought I pushed aside quickly, attributing it to paranoia given all the problems I’d endured with my machine preparing for this ride.)

Kevin got down on the ground and began his inspection. He grasped the left footboard. It was secure. I told him, “It’s not the footboard itself. It’s something I could feel by way of vibration through the footboard.” Then I hear him say, “Shit!” Not what you want to hear from your doctor or your mechanic. “What?!” I asked him. “You’re missing an engine mount bolt!” He got up quickly and went into his shop telling me that he’d get one and insert it immediately. He came back in a minute and got back on the ground.

Then I hear him again, “Oh my God!”

“What!!!?” I asked him.

“Dude, you’re missing both bolts!”

“You mean as in my engine is just sitting in the frame?” Yes, my friends, I rode at least 2,500 miles with my engine unsecured to the frame in the front. After a few hours of heart palpitations, I began to feel really lucky. I’ve been riding for many years and covered a lot of miles, yet it never occurred to me to check the engine mount bolts. I took them for granted. No more. Learn my lesson and check—or have your mechanic check—your engine mounting bolts at least once a year and especially before going on any long rides.

Remember this: even paranoid people can have real enemies! :-) If your engine feels loose, maybe it is.

Other problem fasteners

I had problems with two other fasteners on my trip, one of which apparently eloped with the threaded fastener to which it was attached, and another bolt that came loose every day, and which I tightened every night before going to bed. And each night I cursed to my riding buddy Mitch, “My bike hates me!"

Windshield

(For those of you who have a Harley bat-wing fairing this will be of interest. All others will probably want to skip this section.) On the Harley bat-wing fairing, the wind shield is held on by three ¼-20 ½-inch machine screws. These screws are fastened to brass threaded-inserts (HD part number 16585-96). Sooner or later, you are bound to have one of these fail. Usually, you make the mistake of over-tightening the screw and stripping the insert, or the insert comes loose from the fairing. I had the latter experience a couple of years ago. On my latest ride, however, both the bolt and insert simply came loose and disappeared along I-80 in Nebraska.

On the road I wrapped a piece of duct tape around the edge of the windshield to hold it together. In the photo I've used here, I'm also using duct tape but this time, it's rolled up and placed behind the decorative chrome strip. I had a ride this morning at the Raleigh dealership and did not want to be seen with duct tape wrapped around my windshield. It just seemd to cross a line with me. ;-)

Tonight, I’m going to Mike Russo’s garage where we will attempt to replace the missing insert and fasten the windshield. If it works, you won’t hear about it again from me unless you ask. Here’s a great writeup online I found addressing this task:

http://harleytalking.com/showthread.php?2276-Repairing-the-dreaded-stripped-windshield-screw-on-the-batwing&s=df1bb1b08130da515591e25819dc4981

A friendly parts employee at the local Harley dealership gave me a copy of the official instructions for making this repair when I bought an insert and screw this morning. If you’d like a copy, please leave me an email address in the comment field and I’ll send you a PDF scan.

Tour Pak/license plate mounting assembly

Later this month, I’ll write about the lessons I learned regarding packing my bike. An important one is striving to keep the load on the Tour-Pak as light as possible. In spite of my efforts in this regard, a bolt behind the license plate would work its way loose every day of the trip and every evening—after I discovered the problem, I would remove the license plate and tighten it. Today, I took some of Mr. Russo’s blue Permatex thread glue (aka “loctite”) and applied it to both mounting bolts. Now we’ll see who’s boss. :-)

As always, keep the shiny side up!

-The Long Rider

Update on Monday, July 28, 2014 at 8:00PM by

Michael A. Uhl

(July 28, 2014) As planned, I spent Saturday evening in Mike Russo's garage. As usual, Mr. Russo not only helped me make repairs, he saved me from my stupidity more than once, in particular when it came time to thread in the new insert. We used Loctite® epoxy to hold the new brass insert in place for the windshield and I had forgotten to thread two nuts onto the bolt I was using to turn the insert into the expoxied hole. Before it set we managed to get it off and start over.

I cleaned the insides of my auxilliary headlights ("passing lamps") while we had the fairing off. Like my headlight, they had accumluated a layer of dirt that was dulling their brightness. I then decided to go over the entire bike and look for other problems. I found two: (1) another bolt had come completely out and was gone; and (2) my horn housing was cracked.

As I made my inspection, I grabbed the Tour Pak and attempted to move it around to see if it was tighty secured to the bike. I detected slight movement on the left side and upon further inspection noticed that the bar on the mounting bracket seemd loose. After I removed the chrome cover that hides the mounting bolt, I could see that it had fallen out. Mr. Russo kindly went into his store of fasteners and provided me exactly what I needed to secure it.

Continuing along the left side of my bike, I noticed that my horn looked broken. It was functional, but it moved in ways it shouldn't. After removing it, we could see that the housing was cracked. This horn had been on Mike's bike and he had replaced it with something much nicer. Fortunately, I had purchased a replacement horn and Mike still had it in his garage. He located it and now I am in the process of purchasing yet another replacement horn to keep in his garage. :-) This is my fourth horn in two years.

I've certainly learned the value of using Loctite® thread lock!