My son has a 2014 Triglide and took it in for 10K service today. He was told that a stabilizer bolt that attaches the motor to frame, left side near the neck, was stripped. Not sure if I am describing this properly and neither is my son. Two suggestions were to use a heli coil or replace the frame. Trike is still under mfg warranty. He is a little nervous about the heli coil so is thinking replace the frame. Thoughts on this repair would be appreciated. We are both lost on this issue.

Thanks

 

Under warranty - Replace the frame.

 

Mine has sheared off at the head, they said they need to try
To drill it out, or replace the head. But they need the bike pos
The whole day.

 

To replace the frame they will need it more than one day.

I would ask them to heli coil it for now, (and hope it holds), but when the weather turns bad, then replace the frame. If they did not agree to that, then I would have them replace the frame and give me a loaner while they were doing the work.

 

I wouldn't let them off with just a heli coil, I'd want the frame replaced. Its not going to be easy or quick, it will be time consuming. That trike is too new to jury rig up with band aids.

 

I agree. If you let them use a helicoil to fix that problem, it will bite you in the a** some time down the road. It sounds like the MOCO needs to redesign their motor mounts, possibly with bigger, more beefy bolts.

 

Thanks evryone for the responses. Dealer told him 3 weeks for the repair. He is having the frame replaced. He lives in Tucson, AZ so giving up some of the riding heat won't be too bad now.

How does a bolt like that get stripped out anyways?

 

A bolt hole can get stripped out for a lot of reasons. The first one that comes to mind for me is that the bolt is too small to do the job asked of it. There is simply not enough meat in the threads to support the pull on them and the threads fail and are ripped out of the hole. Also, if the bolt isn't torqued enough, it could loosen causing moving parts to slam against the bolt head and rip it out of the hole. It is probable that the bolt is a better grade of steel than the frame is, so, instead of the bolt failing, the softer metal in the frame fails first.

 

Smart move getting that frame replaced. Everyone will be happy with that move including you and the dealer. He gets paid to do it and you won't be on his rear end later on for additional related failures.

 

The bolt was probably stripped at the factory. They use pneumatic wrenches, if it was slightly cross threaded, it could of stripped ... held for a short time ... then failed.