spakey
Club Member
Enjoying a nice ride with fellow Region 19 guys with just a few clouds in the sky and I seem to be getting spots of what I thought was rain in the face. The A31 is not the best surface to run on and I guess the front suspention was working fairly hard, anyway the next bit of bumpy 'repair' surface I have a huge explosion of oil. Pulled over and I was drenched in fork oil all down the right side. On the Fatboy you can't see any of the fork stanchion or seal caps as it's concealed by the tin ware so the assumption was an oil seal had blown. With this assumption I decided that the front suspension would be somewhat degraded but I'd be OK to continue, we're heading for the Wheels Day, Rushmore Arena Aldershot. A great day at the show and normally we'd take the scenic route via a hostelry on the way back but I said to PP (my wife Pauline) I think we'll make our own way home (there's no way the rest of the guys will do 35-40 miles an hour all through the back lanes of Hampshire!)
So I get the bike back home and to be honest I wasn't convinced that much oil would get past the seal, anyway removing the tin ware I find this:
The oil seal was in fact OK but the lower yoke pinch bolt has snapped and the stanchion had 'unwound' itself from the top nut.
Obviously the bolt snapped some time previously and the stanchion had unwound over a period of time but I'd not noticed as the it's all covered in the tin ware. The front suspension hasn't been touched since new as the fork oil change isn't due for another 10k miles. As you can see the upper yoke arrangement is not the normal pinch bolt type so the stanchion is clamped only by the lower yoke. On any other bike without the tin ware this failure would be obvious, so if you have a Fatboy it may be worth adding these bolts to the critical fasteners check list.
So I get the bike back home and to be honest I wasn't convinced that much oil would get past the seal, anyway removing the tin ware I find this:
The oil seal was in fact OK but the lower yoke pinch bolt has snapped and the stanchion had 'unwound' itself from the top nut.
Obviously the bolt snapped some time previously and the stanchion had unwound over a period of time but I'd not noticed as the it's all covered in the tin ware. The front suspension hasn't been touched since new as the fork oil change isn't due for another 10k miles. As you can see the upper yoke arrangement is not the normal pinch bolt type so the stanchion is clamped only by the lower yoke. On any other bike without the tin ware this failure would be obvious, so if you have a Fatboy it may be worth adding these bolts to the critical fasteners check list.