Originally Posted by
john m flores
A spacer/standoff is not going to alleviate the bending force; it's going to be an additional force applied axially.
if I have a 5mm bolt inside of a standoff with an 8mm OD, and all faces/surfaces are flush, and there's a load perpendicular to the bolt... I'd expect the standoff to transfer some of the leverage force into a stretching force on the bolt.
40# of force acting upon a 8mm lever arm is not applying much bending force at all, certainly not enough to bend the bolt. Try it yourself - put a similar bolt in a bench vise with 1cm exposed and try to bend it with a pair of pliers. It won't budge.
Metal fatigue, though. Over time, it seems like that's just asking for trouble.