Apologies to admin & moderators for quoting from a different forum, but this was emailed to me today, and it's a potentially dangerous fault, so I thought it would be best to share it out: http://www.triumphtalk.com/threads/susp ... les.38953/
Thanks for the heads up Aceman. Will be checking mine when I eventually get round to stripping it down. Looking at the pic of the plates it does look like the bolt may have loosened and caused the whole to elongate which eventually led to the failure, just my opinion but def worth keeping an eye on
I don't see that you have anything to apologise for Aceman. On the contrary, thank you very much for bringing to the forum's attention. Personally I will certainly be checking my drop links as a result of learning this, rather than risk finding about it first hand at the bottom of the dip in Cadwell's Park Straight or similar.! I have to say, it does look like that to me too Buzz675.
I wonder if the bearings had been regreased at all?? If the bearing was seized than the bolt could "cut" through the linkage over time as it rotated slightly with every bump.
Seen this before from someone who luckily was changing their shock and the noticed the parts were worn close to breaking. he admitted never having regreased the links and often cleaning the area with a power hose
Ok this is something else i will check when i get round to cleaning it properly once i have serviced her ready for the spring. Thanks for posting this, always good to have info like this at hand.
I'm betting this is more likely down to bad/lack of maintenance than design fault.. I've had over a dozen 675's and there are 100's of owners here and not once this has come up has it?
Plus, didn't it come from the us? Slight stereotype perhaps but the us seem to have the strangest issues with bikes! Maybe conditions or variation in fuels (not this case obv).
The US has more lawyers than anywhere -many of them keen to make a living!! This is the only account I've read of such an occurrence has anyone come across any other account of this, I suspect not.
So as has been said, probably down to the bad maintenance of the bike rather than a failure.. however its probaly worth thinking about if this ever happens.
I once had a cbr600 that had a replacement rear shock before i bought it, which was an aftermarket (not performance) one I thought nothing of it - why would i!? So after a bike rally with all my camping gear on my luggage rack and my brother on the pillion seat my bike felt like it was handling abit weird, so i pulled over (after about 20miles riding from camp site) And it took less distance for my foot to touch the ground when i took it off the foot peg - weird! My rear shock had snapped! The chrome bar of the shock had snapped from the base, so the shock body and spring were just resting in place, and the bottom of the shock which it had snapped off from had folded backward completly out of the way So on being recovered home i found out why this happened - whoever replaced the shock didnt grease the bolt/sleave/bearing that holds the lower of the shock in place
