I was driving home one afternoon on surface street when I notice an awkward oil smell, turns out it was Me! What I saw was there was oil cooking off the front header pipe. I figured out it was the fork oil. I thought I must have blown a fork seal. I nursed the bike home, checked online, order some seals kits then waited. My bike is a 2003 Heritage with @ 20K miles.Last Saturday I pulled the front wheel off, saw the fender was twisting. I unbolted the fender and out dropped my right fork. I couldn't believe it! It just dropped out of the triple clamp like it wasn't there! The reason I am writing this is to educate those of you who may have had a similar problem. After checking more into what happened, I found that the 7/16x20x1-/4" triple clamp bolt had broke. Some how the fork tube un-twisted from the upper fork cap (that's is why there was a leak). How did happen is a puzzle to Me. I did contact two of the local HD shops. The service tech said he never heard such a thing. I replaced the bolt added new oil and checked all I could. Did a shake down run, everything feels normal. Not looking to place blame anywhere, just looking for feed back. I hope this will keep others from a near "Oh Sh*t" moment. Please let me know what you think and is there something else that needs to be done.

 

Man that's a puzzling issue for sure. Can't say I've ever heard of that either.

Ironically, my 2002 Heritage developed it's very first leak the other day (have owned it since new)... but it's the LEFT fork tube leaking. I haven't had a chance to tear into it yet but when I do I will check everything including that bolt.

 

I've never heard of it either. FWIW, I DID have a fork seal leak a couple years back. Unfortunately, where I saw the oil, I thought the leak was from the cam cover. Turns out it was just being blown there by the wind. Too, bad I didn't find out until I'd needlessly replaced the cam cover gasket.