OK - this pic is not easy to see so I'll describe it as well as I can. I pulled the front wheel to grease it up and noticed the right springer rocker was LOOSE on the front leg - the middle hole. I pulled the nut off and discovered the leg hole was elongated about 1/8 inch around the bolt! Solution? Call Bob of course. Now, this springer has done hard time with the Cossacks and it looks like it hasn't been apart since the factory. So no surprise.
Bob had never heard of this problem so we bounced it around a bit. Best solution is weld and ream. Second best is to ream it out oversize and press/drive some sort of bushing in there. Last is a field fix - jam some sort of spacer in the gap.
Gotta be honest, I took door #3. I grabbed a 3/8" lock washer (nice & hard) and cut it onto chips, pushed a couple in the gap, tightened the nut bigly & called it good. It's actually pretty snug. I stuck them above the bolt rather than below. The theory is the chips will have weight on them most of the time so they'll bite their way in a bit, since they're hardened, and they won't have a chance to work or move. I'm thinking this may be pretty close to an old-school Harley field fix.
Will it last 2000 miles? We'll see. I'm thinking it took quite a few miles to get that loose & I just need to buy some time, so I think maybe. Odds are pretty good I won't be obsessing about it, which is a good sign. I think I have a springer rebuild in my future.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless Phone
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