When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Buddy of mine had has his 2018 front fender break at the mount tabs, then the replacement did the same thing. The forks are perfectly aligned, axle slides in/out like butter and top of the forks in the upper tree are exactly the same. He's going aftermarket, but curious if anyone has seen this before. Based on the bends in the factory fender, I can get that it's the weakest point in the whole thing. Pictures are the second fender, it was welded up a couple times and just keeps breaking.
How's he ride and what are the common road conditions ? ***** out hard and crap roads can beat one up.
Otherwise it has a balance issue with the front legs, one sides stiffer or a fluid imbalance, that or a harmonic vibration, only thing going to break those tabs beside gross impact.
He's not aggressive, just a regular high mileage rider. Road conditions are average, we avoid harsh roads. We were thinking the only thing could be internals perhaps like you said. The funny thing is, each time they've broken he's borrowed my factory fender from my 2017 and has put a few thousand miles on it and it's perfectly fine.
It's going in for fork service this next week (I don't have time to do it for him), I'll have him ask the guys to try and measure how much comes out of each and see if there's a big difference.
More evidence that newer bikes are not as tough as the older ones. Here is a beat up fender with perfect brackets. They will not fit the fender in this thread, they are 1/8 of an inch thick.
More evidence that newer bikes are not as tough as the older ones. Here is a beat up fender with perfect brackets. They will not fit the fender in this thread, they are 1/8 of an inch thick.
They are also stamped and formed, increases the overall strength and ridgidity by a couple orders of magnitude. They quit using those as it takes several more steps in the stamping and production sequence to make.
Based on the two breaks being diagonally across from one another, and the appearance of the fracture lines, I suspect this is a vibration induced failure, flapping the fender side to side around the axis of the fork tubes. If things are at the resonance frequency of that fender, the motion can be pretty dramatic.
So Id be looking at engine mounts, idle speed and the like myself, as well changing the fenders resonate frequency with some weights. Though going aftermarket might be different enough all by itself.
Damn!
That newer bracket sure looks thin by comparison.
Not sure if it would work, but making a custom bracket out of thicker material seems like the easy fix.
It's broken all 4 tabs at one time or another, same on the original fender. Hope they find something internally this week when they do the service.
There has to be a high frequency transient vibration going on to do it that consistently, bikes got a buzz of some kind.
Went through something similar back when I did a stint at a dealer with the Gilroy Indians early 2k years. One repeat customer was having both the big skirted fenders cracking and breaking up on him, 3 sets in the 14 months I was there and numerous items breaking or rattling off, bolt on chrome just didn't last. Redid the motor with an old school balance job on the flywheels, did a complete bed and set of the entire drivetrain, shimming and squaring everything, time consuming. Helped and really smoothed the bike out but didn't stop it. Came down to his riding habits, he like to stay hard on the rpm's, bike just shook itself to death, only found this out after a little conversation with a buddy of his later on.
7 Surprising Harley-Davidson Products that Are Not Motorcycles
Slideshow: The bar-and-shield logo shows up on far more than motorcycles, some of the company's most unexpected products have nothing to do with riding.
Slideshow: From the troubled AMF years to modern misfires, these bikes earned reputations for reliability issues, questionable engineering, or disappointing performance.
Crazy Bunderbike Build Looks Amazing, But Is It Impossible to Ride?
Slideshow: The Swiss custom shop has taken a Harley Softail and stretched it into something so long and low that it looks closer to a rolling sculpture than a conventional motorcycle.
Engraved Rebellion: Inside Bundnerbike's Glam Rock II
Slideshow: A standard cruiser becomes an intricate metal canvas in the hands of a Swiss custom house known for pushing Harley-Davidson platforms far beyond their factory brief.
Slideshow: Harley-Davidson's challenges aren't abstract; they show up in dropping shipments, shrinking dealer traffic, and strategic decisions that aren't yet translating into growth.
Front Fender Breaking
