How can that be? The bearings and clamp will simply settle into the bearing race in the steering head. The rest of the fork and axle will move with the entire assembly. Ya know, the upper tube is connected to the lower. The geometry will change by raising or lowering the UPPER tube in its clamp, thereby raising or lowering the ride height.
But, with the lower pinch bolts loose, the forks DON'T MOVE. Just the lower clamp does.
I guess the factory and every mechanic I know does it wrong.
You still have it backwards. The factory and every mechanic has it right and understands. You just do not get it for some reason even though it has been explained to you in very simple terms you still cant not seem to get it right.
Maybe if I try to explain to you a 3rd and even more simple method you might get it.
Forget you even have fork tubes. Lets say the Connie only has an upper tripple tree and a lower triple tree ,
and they are tied together with the threaded shaft, the one that is attached to and part of the bottom triple tree clamp.
The bottom triple tree that has that threaded rod (basically welded together for the purpose of explaining this) also has the bearing on the bottom, it can never ever move up and down , ever! That bearing stays in the same spot, the threaded rod stays in the same spot never moving ever.
Now the top triple tree does move up and down. If it is up too high you have play in the steering, tighten down the stem nuts and that top clamp moves down closer, further down that threaded shaft to get rid of play.
If you loosened both nuts (there are two nuts, one above and one below the upper triple tree clamp) which move that whole upper triple tree clamp up and down the threaded shaft. The shaft cannot move up and down, it is solid and part of the bottom clamp and the bottom clamp never moves up and down so if the shock tubes are clamped to the bottom and not the top they never ever move.
Think of it this way, the weight of the motorcycle rests on the lower bearing which is part of the lower triple tree clamp and that threaded rod, none of which can move up and down. You can remove the top triple tree clamp and throw it away and the bike does not move any lower ( as long as the shock tubes are still clamped to the lower triple tree) Try clamping the fork tubes to the upper triple tree and remove both nuts and bike slides down the tubes to the ground. The lower clamp and shaft will still be in the exact same spot because it keeps the same relationship to the goose neck.
I hope this helps you to understand because I cannot help you any more than this.
If you read this and you are not Cholla be aware that the above is just a very simplified example to explain basic mechanical theory..