...sheared the upper right shock bolt yesterday. The bike felt a little spongy and twisty and I pulled over thinking I might add a little more pre-load to the shock. Surprise, surprise! The remaining 20 miles home was an exercise in anxiety control. Some riders have the presence of mind to get thee to a hardware store...I just headed for the barn filled w/ images of the other bolt giving up the ghost. I'm replacing all and tossing the take-offs in my fork bag as spares. There are lots of posts about these buggers as well as rear pulley bolts. I think they share a questionable (to me) design flaw. Shock bolts thread into the fender strut at a boss that's about 1" deep. The inboard half is tapped for threads, but the outboard half is a clearance hole. This allows the shank to be unsupported in an installation where there's lots of shear. Seems to me it would be stronger, easier and cheaper (MoCo bean counters take notice) to simply tap the entire boss. Similar voids exist from the backside of the rear pulley until the recessed tapped threads begin in our wheel hubs. Didn't mean to go on and on. Just a reminder to pay attention...

 

I switched out my stock shocks the first week I owned the bike.
Bottomong out will eventually loosen the bolts and breaking is next
My last bike I rode 2 up and the shock blots tended to loosen more.
Some say to switch over to grade 8 but I have the stock bolts and I believe they are grade 5 and have no problem as I do not bottom out anymore.

 

This seems to be a problem only on lowered or highly modified bikes. But a loose shock nut will do it.

 

+1 on that, it is NOT a design flaw, neither is the pulley bolt issue.
My bolts sheared and it clearly was a too short aftermarket bolt issue.

Just because you read about something 50 times in this forum does not make it a design flaw, that is what forums are all about, bitchin and trading ideas, it not however truly representative of the world at large..

 

Odd.
Back in the 70's I had a rear strut snap on my Harley.
Some of the forum members here from SC witnessed me jumping my modded 2000 FXDX.
Straight smooth landing from a 15 foot jump. We didn't record it but should have.

 

My properly torqued stock top suspension bolt sheered as well. It happens.

 

**** HAPPENS! My bike is slammed down and I have never had anything loosen up on me. (Knock on wood) Even my pulley bolts are reused from an older bagger that was being converted to a trike because they were the correct size I needed for my application. (I have custom built wheel and hub or I would have reused my stock pulley bolts)