Safety Safety First Warning

W

WIZARDOFOZONE

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Oh man, I have only the Lord to thank for noticing that my front tire seemed oddly too close to one side of the springer fork .... The large 4 inch top bolt that ties the 2 rear portions of the springer together was originally BLUE (medium weight) Locktited. Apparantly not strong enough ... On inspection,the bolt had less than 3 turns to go before the front downtubes would have gone west and east at the same time .... Now I've RED locktited this large tie bolt and caution everyone to remember to thread lock that tie bolt and inspect the tightness often ... this would be a catastrophic accident at any speed over 10 miles an hour,those springer legs are like pivoting spears.
 
Lucky your observant and nothing "heavy duty" happened.
My routine maintenance program is pretty riggerious(even if i'm having one of my incredibly slack days)
 
Oh man, I have only the Lord to thank for noticing that my front tire seemed oddly too close to one side of the springer fork .... The large 4 inch top bolt that ties the 2 rear portions of the springer together was originally BLUE (medium weight) Locktited. Apparantly not strong enough ... On inspection,the bolt had less than 3 turns to go before the front downtubes would have gone west and east at the same time .... Now I've RED locktited this large tie bolt and caution everyone to remember to thread lock that tie bolt and inspect the tightness often ... this would be a catastrophic accident at any speed over 10 miles an hour,those springer legs are like pivoting spears.

The problem is that it's that 4 inch bolt and the wheel axle that are basically holding the two fork legs together. With spring movement thrown in the legs flex independently of each other pivoting around that 4 inch bolt instead of on the long sleeve through the bottom of the steering stem. The result is that the securing nut comes undone.
On my wee lowrider flat tracker the fork legs are joined by a welded bridge that holds the two legs in alignment. The pivot bolt passes through a proper steel boss on the LHS leg, through the pivot sleeve and then threads into a threaded boss on the RHS fork leg. A beefy stainless steel acorn nut fits on the end of the pivot bolt and acts as a lock nut. It simply does not come undone.
If the nut on your fork continues to unwind itself I would recommend drilling it for a safety wire. The other thing that's really important is to make sure all the nuts and bolts are fitted with washers. At my Dad's work in the engineering dept they had a delightful poster on the wall showing a nut and bolt walking away together hand in hand and the caption on the poster was, 'Not without a washer you don't!' I was only a kiddie and I didn't really understand the meaning of the poster at the time, BUT the image has stuck in my head even after all these years and I never leave the washer off anything I'm assembling.
Um...... did you remember to grease the fork pivot sleeve Wiz?
 
wiz,
this is a testimonial to preflight (ride) checks & preventative maintenance.

good catch!! glad you are ok.

thanks

a nut and bolt walking away together hand in hand and the caption on the poster was, 'Not without a washer you don't!'

Now that's funny!!
 
^ ^ ^ Indeed, sir. :LOL:


Srsly, this was printed on t-shirts available at an Indy 500 many years ago; my friend has one:

"Use Loctite, or kiss your nuts goodbye"

Safety first!


:)~
 
No,I didn't think to grease it, but it will be by tomorrow you can count on it. Thanks Sien ...
 
I imagine you could Black, but I don't think you could do better than getting Locktite on the THREADS,both the bolt threads as well as on the nut threads .... especially when using the RED locktite, after an hour or so loosening is pretty much not going to happen (with the RED I mean)
 
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