It may be an isolated incident but check out what I found this morning when I got to work! When getting off the bike this morning at work, I noticed that the mufflers seem to be be a little loose. Upon closer inspection, I found that the muffler bracket attached to the transmission was loose. The lower stud had lost the nut, the top stud still had the nut but had completely unscrewed, and the 3rd bolt had sheared off below flush with the transmission case. The nuts on the studs are peened after installation and should be resistant to coming loose from the stud. The nut on the top stud seem to work as designed and not loosen from the stud but the lower nut is gone, somewhere on the freeway. Obviously, the peening did not do it's job since the stud is still sticking out of the transmission. The bike is currently at the dealer for repair. The first thing they asked me was "Is it the stock exhaust?". It has the stock headers but S.E. slip-ons so I don't think they can blame me for changing the mufflers. We'll see what they have to say about it.

 

Loctite is your friend...

 

Bro hell no they can't say jack, and do not let them!! The answer is "it's the stock bracket from the factory". Sounds like your head is already up regarding their tactics. That's good.

 

Exact same thing happened to me - the bolt sheared off and the nuts were loose. Took it into the dealer and they said it was my fault cause I swapped out the the slip-ons - even though I never (nor do you need to) removed or even touched the muffler bracket on the tranny side - doesn't need to be done to swap out the slip-ons.

Just another reason why I don't get any work done at the dealers (last time I was there for an oil leak that should have been fixed under warranty, they charged me - when I questioned it they said, oh sorry, but we can give you store credit )

Anyway, my bike is currently at an indy shop for the 5k service - they'll be drilling out the broken bolt and replacing it.

as Lurch said, "check those muffler mounts..."

-Jack

 

Happened to me to, but with the V&H 2-2 exhaust. The dealer mounted it upon delivery.
2 bolts were suddenly gone...

Check all bolts/nuts often! Everywhere!

 

Thanks for the heads up! I just checked my bike and one of the nuts was loose.

 

Got the bike back, they extracted the broken bolt and replaced all of the missing hardware. No charge. I asked if they had seen this issue before and the guy hesitated for a second and said "Only on 1 other bike". Yeah right..

 

I am sure it was on more than one bike.

Thanks for the heads up on this. I check those bolts practically every time I ride now.

 

When I pulled that bracket off mine to install the V&H pipes, all the bolts were tight. Of course the bike was only a little over a month old, but from the looks of the bolts they had some type of locktite material on them, and I couldn't see them ever becoming lose on their own.

When I put the new V&H bracket back on, I used blue locktite and have checked several times since then. Everything looks good and they are not coming lose.

 

All three of the studs sheared off my 2008 Fatbob, not once...but twice in less than 6 months! They told me this has happend only once before (bullshit). HD is taking care of it and found the tranny case where the bolt thread into were stripped as well. I think this is a huge design issue that is about to rear it's ugly head. The decieving thing about the whole thing is the bolt shear between the tranny case and the bracket and the sheared bolts with the nuts attached don't fall off because of the bolt design. Your bolts look exactly like they are intact, but are not. Put a socket on the nuts and see if they spin.