Tensioners - from friend

[texan321]

Decided to have my bike checked during the 60k service for cam chain tensioner wear. Stories out there about the 24,000 MTBF (not the spec, but actual). I'm 26,000 past that.

Costs extra to check, but glad I did. The outer shoe was right at the replace point. The inner shoe, was beyond, and wearing the metal pin that holds it. Disaster was near.

Was planning to replace with the S&S gear-drive unit. While hunting one down at the performance shops, I found out that a problem has come up. The gear units are causing crankshaft runout, and they're holdig off on using them until more is known. That's not good.

So, the story is this from where I sit right now...

On Twin-cam 88's, replace the cam chain tensioners at 40k, and have the cam bearings, hydraulic lifters, and cam hardcased surfaces inspected and replaced if necessary. I suspect if you're not running synthetic oil, you might want to do this earlier than 40k as your wear could be greater.

If the shoes fail on the stock chain/tensioner system, say goodbye to your oil pump, lifters, and more.

Also, heard it's a good idea to saw your oil filter in half after changing to inspect the filter material for pieces of orange tensioner shoe material. If you find any, you're on borrowed time.

Of course, it's not just 88's, and I suspect 95's could be worse or at least equal. Some had heard H-D fixed this issue in the 96's. Dunno.

I saw the removed parts Sunday morning - not good. It was the general consensus that this should be an automatic maintenance check at 20,000 but the MOTOCO decided against it because of the costs - it cost my buddy over $800.00. So - I guess this is something we all need to be aware of. There is some talk about an after market fix but not sure what that is..

ride safe.

[Wrightturn]

Hey Tex

Glad you caught them in time. The dealer cost is why I bought the tools.

I have an 02 with Timken bearing and still have a run out problem. The run out problems I have dealt with are from cranks that are not straight. The dealers that I have spoken with do not know how to straighten a crank and just replace them. There are dealers that do know how but they seem to be the exception. My 99 came with a straight crank. The 99 has gear drive and the 02 is still on chain but adjustable push rods to make service easier.

I have not heard of gear drive causing run out problems. Backlash would have to be way too tight to cause that kind of problem. The gear whine would let you know something was wrong. Just ordered a gear drive conversion for an 04 with .002 run out. More than that is too noisy.

Is your engine an 88 or 96 ?

[texan321]

This was froma friend of mine - he has a 04 RoadKing - I have a 2007 Ultra. But there also seems to be some other issues - I will ost a further discussion on this later. I don't have that many miles on mine so - no issue yet.