IIRC, the assembly is like this: There is a frame mount the bolt slides through at the near and the far end, something like an oversized ring terminal, 1/8" thick steel. Inside adjacent to that is a 3/4" deep mounting holes from the engine casting, then inside that a metal tube that serves like a 6" deep washer. There might be some rubber washers in there too.
The support comes from 2 places: 1 - Shear strength. The mounting holes on both frame and engine are trying to sheer the whole bolt in half, as if you were trying to cut it with scissors. This would be significant, since it's a 3/8" bolt, there's more material there than there is on the bike frame. 2 - Tension strength. When the nut gets screwed on, the whole assembly is clamped to itself, crushing the frame into the engine, trying to stretch the bolt longer, adding a bit and adding extra friction. This would be fairly minuscule. So, as long as the bolt is continuous (not broken at the sheer points, which it's obviously not), it's strength is unaffected. If the strength was coming from compression, pushing on a bent bolt, it would tend to bend further and as such, would be much weaker. But that's not what's happening. In fact the middle part isn't necessary at all, it could just be 2 small bolts. The reason they use a single long one is probably because it's easier and cheaper and drops the parts count by 2, less to assemble. Maybe it helps with alignment too. It also prevents a minor bend from putting uneven force on the engine block, causing it to crack. Suppose it was 2 bolts, each mounting ring could pull the engine in slightly off-square angles, ripping it apart, which may eventually cause it to crack. By using one bolt, you've ensured the force will always be at square angles to both mount points. The only reason not to use it would be if you can't reach or find the far hole since it's too bent, but, shoudln't be a problem. If it is, hammer it square. I don't think you even see this bolt when you're done, it's entirely encapsulated except for the head and the nut. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers!" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/nighthawk_lovers. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
