Hey everyone, I'm working on a friend's 2008 Softail Deluxe.. We had issues with the intake seals at the heads leaking.. No big deal but when disabling everything we found that both ears for the upper mount at the cylinder head head broke.. Now I have a 98 Softail and yeah they're a little different but the upper mount is still basically the same including a solid mount engine... I started looking at all the other engine mounts and everyone was no where near today specs.. is this common for all the mounts to loosen up this much and cause the upper mount to break... I keep a good winter schedule of checking everything on the chassis on my bikes but I really didn't think that the main mounts would loosen up.. Anyways is this common or is it just maintenance neglection...? Thanks..

I forgot to mention the bike has 81,000 miles..

 

FWIW....

I did a top end rebuild and big bore on my 2003 Heritage last year. I've owned the bike since new. It was 19 years old but only has 25K miles (just 1 of 4 bikes)...

When I removed the top mount/horn bracket combo, their bolts were all tight... and the brackets were solid. No cracks and not broken....

In fact, I never separated the top mount from the horn bracket mount... those three locknuts were very tight... I tried to remove one, and when it was obviously going to be stubborn to loosen, I realized I didn't need them separated, so left them connected...