That's a bolt for the rear motor mount.
You got 2 more just like it on the other side and 1 more on the lower side of swing arm.

I aired up my tires to spec. I loosened the rear brake a little bit (3turns)

So I figured I'd remove the heat shield to get at that lower motor mount bolt so I could figure out a replacement for the one that was missing. The parts diagram in the Clymer only shows 1 bolt to remove for the heat shield. Cool, it's easy to get to. It failed to mention the TWO PHILLIPS SCREWS that also attach the heat shield to the bike.   I ended up removing THE WHOLE EXHAUST to get at that one stupid bolt motor mount bolt out of the bike. But hey! I now know who to remove the exhaust when it comes time to put on my Dyna   Hell, I would have put the Dyna on if I already had the jets and clamp. No local shops have the jets (I've checked). I'll have to get em online.

I also learned that my exhaust clamp that mounts the header to the cylinder is WARPED. That would explain my exhaust leak $26 for a new clamp from BikeBandit. I already have a new exhaust gasket.

ANYWAY, I replaced both lower rear motor mount allen head bolts, put some Loctite RED and torqued them down to about 20ft lbs. I coudn't retorque the nut that's supposed to be torqued to 51-64 ft lbs because I don't have a metric socket larger than 14mm. Would that nut be 15mm or 16mm? Page 74 of the Clymer.

The vibration and lugging feeling I was noticing before isn't totally gone. It has changed. I rode the bike 40 miles today to work and back and I didn't really have that same lugging feeling. Instead I now get more of a a tight vibration I can feel in the grips and with my knees against tank. It's stronger when I'm accelerating hard.

Should I just go and retorque ALL of the motor mount bolts?

This thing is 10 years old and none of those bolts besides the ones I've been forced to go over have been touched since it was assembled. I've had: 1 exhaust header clamp bolt vibrate out, the other come loose (which is why my exhaust header clamp is warped). 1 motor mount bolt vibrate out. 1 toolbag cover and toolbag vibrate out. 1 left side frame cover vibrate off.

Loosey goosey!

17mm eh? Thanks Serowbot.

It is! The Dyna is so much lighter. Maybe after I replace it I can break that 90mph mark, downhill, with a good tailwind! Hahaha.

You have 7 and 3/4 ounces of balance weights on the rear tire of a Savage?

That is about six times what I would expect you to have !!!

If you didn't have the vibration before you got the new tire I would suspect that the balance is wrong. If I had a motorcycle tire that needed that much weight to balance, I would take it off & send it back.
I would take a marker & mark where the weights are(that way you can put them back if necessary), then take them off & go for a ride. Or maybe block the bike up to get the rear wheel off the ground & go through the gears (you can do this without removing the weights) & see if that was my vibration.

Mechanics rule: If a new problem shows up right after something has been changed or worked on, double check the previous work before doing anything else.

I would still block it up with the tire off  the ground & see what it felt like. It won't cost anything & would eliminate the rear tire/wheel assembly as the problem. With vibrations it's important to figure out what it ain't to figure out what it is.

Fish wrote on 10/02/11 at 17:07:17:


I hope he didn't charge you for all those wts.  It was his screw up.

That dot should be lined up with the valve stem.  Cause it's almost 90° off, it makes sense where all the wts. are.  And it's a pain in the ass to move it once it's on, so as long as it's balanced, fine.  But if he didn't dynamically balance it, I'd go back and ask for it.  Like I said, his screw up and you're feeling a problem.