While doing some cleaning on the 04 Deuce tonight I heard a clink as my hand reached the the end of the swingarm. Nuts, I'm betting whatever made that sound isn't supposed to be loose. Turns out to be a washer on one of the bolts is so loose it can wobble. How have I missed this in the past?!?

So to fix this do I have to remove the rear tire? I have one of the "good" lifts, you know the one that on their web page it shows a guy crawling all over a Road King once fully lifted, but I still hate putting bikes in the air. Maybe that's because of the time my Sporty fell off a cheap lift while I was removing the front tire. That was fun, all by myself and still the bike didn't hit the ground but getting the wheel back on was FUN.

Looking at past posts on the subjects I have seen that these bolts are said to be once use bolts. I do not want to start that up again but I am wondering where this info comes from since in my HD service manual it only says to install the bolts, nothing about new bolts or discarding the old ones? Is this something new or just a common sense kind of thing?

What I'd really like to do is just get a crow's foot and torque down this bolt and check the others. Is this a bad plan or what?

 

I would replace them. Use grade 8 bolts with red loctite, one at a time and torque em' up to spec.

Bob
97 Heritage

 

Quote:
What I'd really like to do is just get a crow's foot and torque down this bolt and check the others. Is this a bad plan or what?
__________________
Yes it is. Start fresh with new bolts and inspect the threads in the hub. Once you disturb the bolts by trying to torque them after loctite there's a good chance they can fail later. See the Dyna section for lot's of good info on this. Why that one bolt is not tight is worth further investigation.
Ron

 

Replacing them is a bit of overkill, but if you feel more comfortable doing it fine.

Me I would just pull that one bolt, inspect it carfuly to make sure it didn't get loose because its cracked or something. Be sure you don't see aluminum shavings in the threads because it could indicate the thread inside the wheel might be stripped or about to let go.

You probably should reduce the drive belt tension by backing off on the adjusters. Mark the adjusters with a Sharpie pen or some nail polish and back off both sides an equil amount and make a note of how many turns so you can put it back after your done.

If everything checks out, put some red lock-tite on it and reinstall it.

Then recheck the torque on all the others, be sure to do it like its a wheel lug nut set and skip back and forth around the bolt circle to make sure you don't accidentally get the sprocket out of true with the wheel.

Once you have them all torqued to spec and lock-tited, you can retension the drive belt and take it out for a ride.

 

I was afraid this was going to be the answer. Timing really stinks, we are down to zero working vehicles here now. From 2 to none in one day! Went to put the brand new battery charger on the wife's car so that I could at least start looking in to its problem and the charger is no good. And I woke up with pain in an area that makes me think that I shouldn't do any heavy lifting for a while and hey shouldn't that be yellow not red?

Oh well guess that's our 3 and we should be good for a while. Done whining now.

 

Good luck man, don't have any advice, just good wishes.

 

Well that SUX, but at least the bike isn't going to be a really bad or hard fix.
As long as there is nothing wrong with the threads in th wheel it should be a fairly simple if tedious job to get it up and going in under a couple of hours.

 

Why would it take a couple of hours to replace five bolts?
It took me a 1/2 hour.

Bob
97 Heritage

 

Car just needed a new alternator so that is taken car of.

Bob it only took you 1/2 an hour to pull and reinstall your rear wheel? That's pretty quick. As far as I can tell the wheel has to be pulled to replace these bolts and I'm pretty sure I can't do that in half an hour.

 

the 07 manuals start saying to replace them, for what ever reason MoCo must of figured out there was an issue that could be corrected by replacing them with new ones. If you get the chrome hardware kit, it comes with a completely different procedure for torquing them down. I am in favor of replacing them because the cost is low, verses the cost if they come loose while you are riding.
If you use a crow's foot to torque them down, remember there is a magnification of the torque when you use the crow's foot. I do not know how to figure the amount, so I would use the lower end torque range, with red loctite.
ask on here someone can tell you how to figure the calculation.