I am not sure what is wrong with the springer shock. All I did was take it off to replace the crusty bolts with some shiny new stainless hardware. I went to put it back on and noticed that I could not tighten it down enough to get the shock to tighten up. I know that I cannot crank the hell out of the bolt and bend the shock mounts in close enough to keep the shock from shaking. Putting too much pressure on the bolt could break the tabs for the shock mount. If that happens, the springer front end is ruined!


So, I tightened up the bolts to a reasonable amount of torque and then took this video. I left the 36" breaker bar, 3/4" drive nut buster ratchet, and the 780 ft/lbs impact wrench in the tool box and thought it would be best to get some ideas of what to do next?


There was nothing at all wrong with the shock before I messed with it. It was nice & tight and worked just fine. Something changed when I took the bolts out and the shock off. It only had a couple of washers on both sides of the bolt (top & bottom). I didn't see anything else and nothing seem to just fall out.


What am I doing wrong?



Before I took the shock off


After I took the shock off

 

Did you accidentally swap the bushings top vs bottom? I'd have thought they are the same, but it looks to me like you installed the bushings incorrectly from all that slop back and forth in the bracket you are getting.

 

Looks like a bushing issue. Is it in there?

 

Was there a sleeve that stuck to the bolt making the new one sloppy?

 

Possibly a spacer in the rubber is missing or the original bolts were stepped

 

It looks like two different bikes!!!

 

 

Replace the shock. The bushing( rubber) rot out. When you drove out the bolts the rubbers took a ****. You cannot to my knowledge, replace the shock bushings.