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Cruiser
Posts: 251
Mechanicsville, VA United States | They sell more fenders that way! |
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Cruiser
Posts: 102
Parkersburg WV | would it help to make the hole a little bit bigger ?
Bob |
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Visionary
Posts: 1228
Rancho Cucamonga, CA | Not bigger, thinner. |
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Tourer
Posts: 366
Albuquerque, NM | diamonbird - 2013-12-18 5:56 PM
As you can see from above I got it, now as you can see the shoulder of the bolt does not come all the way through the hole so it can land on the mounting spot on the fork so if you tighten the bolt too tight it's going to mash the plastic and break it. I made sure when I tightened the bolt when reinstalling the new fender I was not over tightening it but it still broke. The problem is the lack of length of the shoulder on the bolt. Now if someone can kind a longer bolt they could sell the crap out of them to us!
Why did they decrease the thickness of the fender around the bolt? They should have left it the same thickness of the rest of the fender and increased the length of the shoulder on the bolt as stated by diamonbird! |
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Visionary
Posts: 4278
| ADD a bigger round washer to bolt. It will fill up the gap on the shoulder on the bolt so the bolt will tighten up all the way |
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Cruiser
Posts: 251
Mechanicsville, VA United States | That's the problem JV, the plastic will not take being meshed....what we need is M6 X1.0 bolts and 8mm outside x 6mm inside x 4mm lenght spacer collars. |
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Visionary
Posts: 1365
Central Maryland | nailer - 2013-12-19 2:53 PM
diamonbird - 2013-12-18 5:56 PM
As you can see from above I got it, now as you can see the shoulder of the bolt does not come all the way through the hole so it can land on the mounting spot on the fork so if you tighten the bolt too tight it's going to mash the plastic and break it. I made sure when I tightened the bolt when reinstalling the new fender I was not over tightening it but it still broke. The problem is the lack of length of the shoulder on the bolt. Now if someone can kind a longer bolt they could sell the crap out of them to us!
Why did they decrease the thickness of the fender around the bolt? They should have left it the same thickness of the rest of the fender and increased the length of the shoulder on the bolt as stated by diamonbird!
Some idiot engineer at Victory wasn't up to his game that day; the day he designed it. |
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Cruiser
Posts: 251
Mechanicsville, VA United States | I've find the spacer collars and I know which bolts to use, now it's a waiting period for them to get here......once I have the parts here and install them I will post it for you all.....I've ordered 12 collars so I may be able to help some of you out...we'll see! |
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Visionary
Posts: 4278
| diamonbird - 2013-12-19 6:21 PM That's the problem JV, the plastic will not take being meshed....what we need is M6 X1.0 bolts and 8mm outside x 6mm inside x 4mm length spacer collars. Maybe the bolt is to long and stops before it should. When I put washer on my bolt and tightened it has never come loose. Never thought the bolt was to long before |
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Cruiser
Posts: 251
Mechanicsville, VA United States | Johnny I think you're missing the point here, the bolt lenght has nothing to do with the problem, the lenght is fine, it's the lenght of the shoulder on the bolt, it's not long enough to go through the plastic fender hole to make contact with fork mount. The head of the bolt should not be applying meshing pressure to the plastic fender. The holes in the fender are to close to the outer edge of the plastic to support the meshing force of the bolt and the plastic will break after some time. I think what you're doing with your washer does help spread the meshing force but sooner or later the plastic will give up and break there's just not enough plastic on the outer edge and hitting bumps in the road adds to the stress on the small amount of plastic on the outer edge of the hole in the plastic. Both of my fenders(2)broke on the outer edge of the holes. I've ordered some spacer collars to fit a M6X1.0 bolts that I already had, the spacer lenghts I ordered are 4mm in lenght, hopely this is long enough to keep from meshing the plastic but not to long and making the fender to loose on their mounts to the forks, I guess I'll see shortly...still waiting on delivery.
Edited by diamonbird 2013-12-21 4:41 AM
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Iron Butt
Posts: 802
| I did some measuring. The bolts they are using to support the fender are an unusual size. The diameter of the shoulder is 7.6 mm and the length of the shoulder is 2.75 mm. The thickness of the plastic on the current rear portion of the front fender at the hole is 3.40 mm on the left side and 3.18 mm on the right side. The hole diameter is approximately 7.75 mm. This is the third fender on my '13 bike. On the last one the left side cracked. I also lost a fender on my '11.
The diameter of the shoulder seems to work fine with the size of the hole so I think that's OK.
It seems to me that a certain amount of compression of the plastic fender is designed in and as a matter of fact the front portion of the front fender, which looks to be made of the same material, has a thickness at each hole of 3.24 and 2.95 mm on the left side and 3.20 and 2.93 mm on the right side.
Doing the arithmetic the plastic is being compressed .25 - .50 mm on the front portion of the front fender assuming that the bolts are torqued sufficiently so that the shoulder bottoms on the fork lower. I haven't heard of any cracking problem with the front portion.
The rear portion of the front fender calculates out to a compression of .43 mm on the right side and .65 mm on the left side. The left side has definitely more compression then any of the other 5 holes and seems to be the one most prone to cracking but certainly not the only side that cracks.
Personally I think there is something else going on here besides the amount of plastic compression that is causing these things to fail. I don't know enough about plastics and this particular blend of plastic to know what the correct range of compression should be but having said that it would seems to me that if the problem was simply caused by the amount of compression then the front portion should be cracking as well and it isn't.
The one common thing I have seen on my 4 failed fenders is that the crack begins at the hole and spreads downward until the entire front portion of the plastic detaches. If you think about the load the fender is under you'll conclude that most all of the pressure on the fender exerted by the wind at speed is attempting to push the bottom portion of the fender rearward toward the engine as it pivots on the top connection. Its almost like a wind scoop. As a matter of fact when the fender does break off it pivots rearward lodging itself in the fairing mouth right in front of the engine.
The conclusion I keep coming back to is that the two lower mounting holes are insufficient to support the fender against wind pressure at high speeds for extended periods along with whatever other stresses are present like vibration, bumps, etc. The question has to come up as to why do some fenders on some bikes fail and others do not. Could it be an environmental variable? By environmental I'm referring not to the weather even though that might have an effect based on how the plastic reacts to temperature over time, but how the bike is used, ie: extended high speed operation like we have here in SoCal or very bumpy or pot holed roads. Those kinds of things.
If the shortcoming is in fact the lower mounts what can we do about it since so far Victory isn't letting on that they're doing anything? One thing I've been thinking about since the last failure has been to make a couple of aluminum plates that would cover the bottom mounts from the inside of the fender and extend to the surrounding plastic for a certain distance. I envision drilling the plate so that a modified screw with a longer shoulder would go through the plate and the fender as a sandwich before screwing into the existing lower fork leg hole. I would then add two smaller mounting screws that would go through the fender and into the plate a distance away from the main screw. In this way the load could be spread out so that the original plastic hole isn't bearing all of it. There are some obstacles to making a plate like this due to the fact that the plastic mount's position is offset and at a different angle than the rest of the fender. Difficult but not impossible.
Anyway, just some thoughts. What do you think?
Marc |
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Visionary
Posts: 8144
New Bohemia, VA | I think the whole thing stinks! |
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Iron Butt
Posts: 802
| Chris, that's an understatement but what to do? A guy can either go out and buy an aftermarket fender and get it painted hoping that it'll match and not chip or wait for the current one to fail assuming Vic will replace it and that the failure doesn't end up causing something worse or otherwise try and fix it. I don't know. So far I've just been replacing them on Vic's nickel but I don't know how long that's gonna last besides which what do I do if it fails in the middle of nowhere on a long trip? So, I've been thinking about what is causing it and if I can stop it. Maybe I'm spinning my wheels but I really like this bike and I ride it a lot like you and I don't like giving up.
Marc |
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Iron Butt
Posts: 802
| Has anybody heard what happened with Witchcrafter's one piece fender? Its not on his website.
Marc |
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Iron Butt
Posts: 691
Manchester, CT | hey Marc
Jon gave an update last week. bottom line he has finally identified a vendor that can meet the quality and price points he was poking for. |
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Iron Butt
Posts: 802
| diamonbird - 2013-12-18 3:01 PM
Okay I've found out why the front rear part of the fender is breaking.......now lets see if I can post pictures.
A little history, my fender was found to be broken at or around 20,000 miles, I ordered a new one and replaced it ....at 27,000 miles I decided to changed my fork oil and seals........found another crack in the same side that had broke before(Left side).....anyway I figured I've got to find out why it keeps breaking! Just in case the pictures won't post here's the deal, the Shoulder of the bolt that holds the fender in place is not long enough to make contact with the fork and it is meshing the plastic fender and breaking it. As it turns out I can't post pictures again.......I can't seem to resize them. sorry!
I've done some more investigation while visiting my dealer yesterday. There seems to be two different cracks happening. One of them goes from the bolt hole vertically straight down to the edge of the fender. The other crack goes between the hole and the nearest edge horizontally. Sometime it starts in the hole and sometimes it starts on the fender edge. The horizontal crack is clearly caused from the bolt clamping on the brittle plastic excessively so I completely agree with you. The compression is .017" on the right side and .026" on the left side. The problem is that the fender hole and the shoulder diameter and length are non-standard as well as the diameter of the head of the screw which is important. The diameter of the shoulder is 7.6 mm and the length of the shoulder is 2.75 mm. Some clamping on the plastic is necessary to keep it from chafing. I'm guessing that .010" should be enough. I made two inserts on my CNC machine out of very hard 7075 aluminum that are tailored to the thickness of my fender. The insert has a built in shoulder and is drilled for a 6x1x20 mm button head screw. The clamping end that presses against the plastic is the same diameter as the head on the stock screw which is 15 mm. I made the left one with a shoulder length of .125" and the right one with .115" so that they're .010" shorter than the plastic they go through. I've got them installed now so we'll see what happens.
Marc |
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Cruiser
Posts: 251
Mechanicsville, VA United States | Marc, I think you've got it........now make enough them for everyone and sell them at a decent price....you won't get rich but everybody well love you!
If I'd had the equipment that you have at hand I would have my own right now, I'm still waiting on the collar spacers for my fix. They should be here next week....I ordered 12 collars hoping I cause help a few people out.
BTW, your assessment of the cracking is exactly where my 2 fenders broke at!
Edited by diamonbird 2013-12-27 8:39 PM
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Iron Butt
Posts: 802
| diamonbird - 2013-12-19 4:21 PM
That's the problem JV, the plastic will not take being meshed....what we need is M6 X1.0 bolts and 8mm outside x 6mm inside x 4mm lenght spacer collars.
I was wondering what you're planning to do with these parts? To use the 8 mm OD you'll have to drill the hole but there isn't much material there. Are you planning on shortening the spacers? Just curious if you found a way to do it using standard sized parts.
Marc |
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Cruiser
Posts: 251
Mechanicsville, VA United States | Marc, well I thought the size was close to being correct and if not try and resize them(buy new ones of another size), I had a guy at work measure the OEM bolt and he gave me the numbers as I was not going to mash the plastic at all with my fix....I am not a machinist as you sound to be. The really cool part of me calling out the problem/fix to begin with is you came along and sounds like you actually have the correct sizes and or the true fix for this problem/issue, I bow to you!
To all that are watching this thread do not use the sizes I have indicated in my post as my numbers are incorrect for this fix!
Marc thanks for getting involved in this matter you may have saved a life as MaVic doesn't acknowledge there's a problem "it's just a wear item" and not their problem!
Now Marc do you have the time to make a bunch of these bolts to sell to the masses? Cause if you do I would like to buy a set from you?! |
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Tourer
Posts: 573
Central Illinois | nailer - 2013-12-19 1:53 PM diamonbird - 2013-12-18 5:56 PM As you can see from above I got it, now as you can see the shoulder of the bolt does not come all the way through the hole so it can land on the mounting spot on the fork so if you tighten the bolt too tight it's going to mash the plastic and break it. I made sure when I tightened the bolt when reinstalling the new fender I was not over tightening it but it still broke. The problem is the lack of length of the shoulder on the bolt. Now if someone can kind a longer bolt they could sell the crap out of them to us! Why did they decrease the thickness of the fender around the bolt? They should have left it the same thickness of the rest of the fender and increased the length of the shoulder on the bolt as stated by diamonbird! They really did not set out to make it thinner there, what they did was set a precise depth, unlike the rough thickness that was just fine for the fender itself. That gives them the consistent precision they need to get the shoulder length right. If they failed to follow through with a consistent shoulder vs thickness, that does not mean that the concept was flawed, it just was not executed well. |
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Iron Butt
Posts: 802
| diamonbird - 2013-12-28 2:12 AM Marc do you have the time to make a bunch of these bolts to sell to the masses? Cause if you do I would like to buy a set from you?!
There are a few issues in making these spacers as I see it.
1. My fender has a variance in the thickness of the plastic between the right and left sides. If our goal is to have a set amount of clamping thickness then I would need to know the thickness of the fender I'm making them for which requires a good micrometer or caliper. As an alternative I could make the length of the shoulder on the long side and the installer could file or sand down the shoulder till it fit but he would have to be careful to keep the end flat and perpendicular to the bolt hole.
2. I made mine to have .010" clamping but I have no idea if that's the proper amount. If its too much then we risk the plastic cracking again. If its not enough then we risk abrasion damage caused by the fender moving around (the term is fretting).
3. I don't know yet what is causing the vertical crack but I have the suspicion its something different and not from over-clamping (new term) the plastic. I've thought all along that it was being caused by wind stressing the fender but I'm only guessing. In other words, we might stop one crack but not affect the other crack.
One thing I can say is that when I tighten the screws up with my insert in place the screw definitely tightened hard against the fork lower and not the plastic and the fender feels very secure. I've noticed when tightening it up before that the shoulder screw was tightening on the plastic and not the fork lower so I think we've accomplished at least something.
The other day someone posted that he had a fix for this problem even in the case the fender is already broken. It was the fellow who makes the brake pedal modification and runs this website www.victorybrakepedal.com. I apologize that I don't know his name but I subsequently noticed that his post is gone. Maybe Jeff didn't appreciate it? Anyway, possibly he has a better solution and will respond here. He did mention that it was a secret so I don't know what his fix consists of. Maybe its like Obamacare where, "we have to pass it so you can find out what's in it" but in this case we have to buy it first. Just joking :-) He said he was afraid someone might rip off his idea which I guess is possible.
In any case, please let me know what you guys think and if it seems like a good idea I'll make a bunch.
Marc |
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Visionary
Posts: 1228
Rancho Cucamonga, CA | When I bought my Clearwater lights, they came with new bolts replacing the ones with a shoulder. There method uses a washer with a shoulder and thin nylon washers that fit over the shoulder to get the correct thickness. Let's see if I have a picture of the parts.....
Anyone know where to get these?
Edited by Nozzledog 2013-12-28 8:40 PM
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Iron Butt
Posts: 691
Manchester, CT | Hey Nozzledog
Glenn from Clearwater may be able to help you out. I spoke with him a couple of times when I ordered my Darlas. He was extremely accommodating. |
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Iron Butt
Posts: 1066
Peru, IN | Nozzledog --- I believe those replace the bolts for the front section of the fender. It's the rear section that has the problems. |
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Iron Butt
Posts: 802
| Monkeyman - 2013-12-28 8:02 PM
Nozzledog --- I believe those replace the bolts for the front section of the fender. It's the rear section that has the problems. Except for the length, the front and rear shoulder bolts are the same dimensions as is the diameter of the holes. The washers would have to be really thin in order to use them to get the correct clamping. There has to be something different between the front and rear fender. The front fender has between .010" - .020" clamping and yet the shoulder hits solidly against the fork lower without cracking the plastic. The material looks the same but something is different. The paint maybe? In any case, the rear cracks at the same clamping as the front but the front doesn't crack. Why? Seems like the rear is a whole lot more brittle.
Marc |
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Front fender
