Maybe we can call this new method the fall off method.?

 

Call it what you want... I tried checking the fall away and it was pretty inconsistent. Like the book says "take the average" but I wasn't really comfortable doing it that way. It's tighter then it was and nothing is binding so I'm fine with it. What Harley needs is an actual torque value to take all the guess work out. Some people go by torque, but what we did was get it to a point where you could feel the slightest bit of drag, then backed it off until it completely went away.

 

I may be missing your year for your Heritage but my manual shows 4 complete designs for the Softail line in 04. Your's is one of the few that dose not appear to have the adjuster nut below the upper tree that sits on the washer that sits directly on top of the tapered roller bearing that loads it. Hence the slotted nut is one reason making the necessity to use the fall away to insure the bearing is properly preload so it is neither too tight (grease would be squeezed out and it would soon fail or too loose and you would have sloppy steering on a bumpy road. No one makes a torque wrench suited for the slotted adjuster nut just like the nut on a bicycle stem. However yours appears to just have a bolt on top if I am looking at your design, I would think you could torque yours if it wasn't for the additional torque placed on bearing from the outer trees were the pinch bolts may tend to lean on the bearing. In my mind 65 ft lbs is a lot of preload on bearings. My bike the upper nut pushes on top of the actual adjuster, not the bearing, hence the high torque and the bent tab retainer for the lock nut. However the finial tightening of the upper nut and the pinch bolts on my bike do appear to affect total fall away on my bike slightly.
Couple questions for you so I understand what I see since I would thing when you found your upper bolt on your bike only hand tight that is what I would think it should be on a bearing preload. On older cars that had ball bearings in the front axles you only hand tighten them. What keeps your top bolt tight? Does it have an nylon elastic retainer on it? Do you have any adjuster under the top tree that has slots in it?

 

This may not apply to your model, but just so others know, there are bikes where the bolt on top of the stem isn't supposed to be tight.

These are adjusted by loosening a pinch bolt which clamps the top of the stem, and the pinch bolts for the fork legs. To tighten the bearings, the vertical bolt in the top of the stem is tightened slightly (pulling the trees closer together). To loosen the bearings, the bolt is loosened slightly. Then you re-clamp all the pinch bolts, and re-check.
If you put major torque on that adjusting bolt, it would put the bearings under tremendous pre-load.

I haven't done this, and it doesn't apply to my model, but this is from the service manual.

 

That would be my bike... You can't tighten the bolt right up, just small adjustments. I just wish there was a more fool proof way of setting it. There are to many variables for something that is so important to get right. The guy that helped me knows his stuff and I trust that we got pretty good results, but anyone getting it perfect would be just by pure luck IMHO.