Sitting in a buddy garage the other day. He was getting ready for a lengthy road trip doing a 1000 mile check on the wife's Switchback. Only 500 miles on the clock.

Sometimes you go through the motions on these checks for what seems like no reason, not this time.

The front axle nut check turned out to be a real attention getter! Finger loose.

Hate to think what could have happened.

 

Loctite is your friend.

 

i keep mine under my pillow.

 

Before long trips I take 15 minutes to carefully inspect my tool roll, make sure nothing got loose and all roadside repair tools are present. It's a simplified maintenance procedure without fluid change.

 

ok. just checked! oh-oh one is smaller then the other. now, what am I supposed to do?

 

At Barber Motorsports Park after coming out of the museum some random guy was looking at my bike - he mentions "look at your front axle clamp". One nut was gone and the other was finger tight - And I thought I noticed it was handling a little weird for a while.

 

Wife has mine on her nightstand!!! Lol

Lucky find, just goes to show, things happen.

 

I had it happen 25 miles after I bought it. I picked it up from the dealer and they had changed the tires. Friend was checking the bike out and pointed out that the axle cap was about to fall off. I went back the next time the dealer was open and spoke with the GM. He was very apologetic and through in a few freebies. I am kind of glad I had a few days to calm down as they were closed the day after I found it.

 

I've never had an axle nut come loose. I'd have to think with only 500 miles on the bike it was never torqued properly to start with from the factory. Even if that nut fell off the axle shouldn't go anywhere, it's still clamped in place at the other end (unless the factory assembly line guy forgot to tighten that as well).

At least now with sealed bearings it's harder to ruin them by overtightening the axle nut. Bike's with the older Timken bearings (99 and down) used a thin spacer between the bearings that could crush easily. You wind up with tight bearings that eventually seize and fail, not good. You get those ham-fisted types that have to put on everything with the 1/2" breaker bar and you got problems.

 

If you ever buy a used bike, check all the nut & bolts as soon as you can; I've bought two that not only had several loose ones, but missing a few, too. One of them was a 400 mile ride home, took a chance and got lucky. One of it's pegs didn't have a retaining clip, lucky the pin was put in head up like they're supposed to be.