Mark Hammond
Committee
This one is definitely a case of taking action on three small and insignificant bolts to prevent a potentially serious failure. The three button head bolts that hold the side stand on are known to vibrate loose, eventually leading to one or more falling out. Not a significant problem on a bike where the jiffy stand is bolted to a lower frame rail, however the Rev Max bikes don’t have a lower frame rail and use the engine as a stressed member of the frame instead of lower frame rails.
The procedure detailed in the attached Technical Service Bulletin is supposed to be completed by dealerships when a bike is serviced by them. Personally, I wouldn’t rely on dealership technicians to remember to complete this simple, but very important task.
When the jiffy stand bolts, vibrate loose (and possibly fall out) they allow the stand to move away from its mating face with the crankcase, which when the jiffy stand is used, in turn places pressure on the shaft of the button head bolt, rather than the mating face of the crankcase. In time, the not designed for, pressure on those bolt shafts can lead to the crankcase splitting in the area where the bolts enter the crankcase. The crankcase cavity behind the blind holes that the jiffy stand bolts go into is an oil bearing cavity and if the crank case splits, it will be messy, and an expensive fix.
As with most of these potential issues that I am highlighting with the Rev Max bikes, there is a simple piece of maintenance that an owner can complete which will prevent this potential issue from occurring. Details are on the attached Technical Service Bulletin, but it really is as simple as taking the bolts out one at a time, clean up the threads, apply blue loctite thread locker and reinsert each bolt, torquing it to 20-22 ft/lbs.
The only sure way to know whether the bolts have had loctite applied to them, is to remove them (one at a time), clean the threads and apply the blue loctite yourself
The attached pictures aren’t of my Pan America, they are of another bike that didn’t receive the regular checks and preventative maintenance that the jiffy stand requires. At the time of writing, individual crankcase’s aren’t available from HD, so a cracked crankcase will need to be repaired.
As usual, this post is being placed here to provide this information for owners or potential owners of Rev Max engined bikes. All bikes have potential problem areas and hopefully a little bit of knowledge shared, will help make the ownership of these bikes enjoyable and trouble free.
No need to comment on this post if you simply don’t like the Rev Max engined, or other modern Harleys. Lets keep this section of the forum a place for sharing information and asking questions about these bikes.
The procedure detailed in the attached Technical Service Bulletin is supposed to be completed by dealerships when a bike is serviced by them. Personally, I wouldn’t rely on dealership technicians to remember to complete this simple, but very important task.
When the jiffy stand bolts, vibrate loose (and possibly fall out) they allow the stand to move away from its mating face with the crankcase, which when the jiffy stand is used, in turn places pressure on the shaft of the button head bolt, rather than the mating face of the crankcase. In time, the not designed for, pressure on those bolt shafts can lead to the crankcase splitting in the area where the bolts enter the crankcase. The crankcase cavity behind the blind holes that the jiffy stand bolts go into is an oil bearing cavity and if the crank case splits, it will be messy, and an expensive fix.
As with most of these potential issues that I am highlighting with the Rev Max bikes, there is a simple piece of maintenance that an owner can complete which will prevent this potential issue from occurring. Details are on the attached Technical Service Bulletin, but it really is as simple as taking the bolts out one at a time, clean up the threads, apply blue loctite thread locker and reinsert each bolt, torquing it to 20-22 ft/lbs.
The only sure way to know whether the bolts have had loctite applied to them, is to remove them (one at a time), clean the threads and apply the blue loctite yourself
The attached pictures aren’t of my Pan America, they are of another bike that didn’t receive the regular checks and preventative maintenance that the jiffy stand requires. At the time of writing, individual crankcase’s aren’t available from HD, so a cracked crankcase will need to be repaired.
As usual, this post is being placed here to provide this information for owners or potential owners of Rev Max engined bikes. All bikes have potential problem areas and hopefully a little bit of knowledge shared, will help make the ownership of these bikes enjoyable and trouble free.
No need to comment on this post if you simply don’t like the Rev Max engined, or other modern Harleys. Lets keep this section of the forum a place for sharing information and asking questions about these bikes.
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