I would be really interested on who has actually had a cam chain tensioner failure, what year of bike and how many miles. Also was it covered under warranty. It does not have to be a catastrophic failure can include worn beyond factory specs.
It would be interesting to see if there is a pattern that developes.
I had a 2003 Ultra with 40,000 miles that was beyond factory specs and replaced under extended warranty in 2005.
After all the things I've read about cam chain tensioner wear, I decided I better take a look at mine.
I have a stock, 2003 Night Train, with 28,800 miles on it...I use Mobile 1 V-Twin 20-50 oil in the engine, and have since I bought it two years ago, with 10,000 miles on it.
I was very pleasantly surprised to find that I have very little wear on the orange pads of my tensioners..."maybe" 10 percent...and that was on both the front and rear tensioner pads, and the forward cam chain felt very smooth to the touch.
No "special" tools needed...I used a pair of channel locks to move the front tensioner into position, and held it in place with a small "allen" wrench, and a long, thin screw driver and "allen" wrench for the rear tensioner.... and used a small "mechanics" mirror to check the rear pad.
I feel a little better having done the check, and found the hardest part was putting the stock "mesh" type Harley exhaust gasket back into the front exhaust outlet....using a little used oil that drained from the cam cover when taking it off to lube the exhaust port and the gasket helped it slide into place for me.
2000 road king police....43,000 miles both inner and outer tensioners are junk plus lost the bearing on the drive cam and the oil pump got chewed up...but fixed it an up and running....i have to other friends with an 99 and 01 flh and same thing @ 40,000 miles.
I had a 99 ulra classic and had the cam bearings changed out at 76,000 and they changed out the tensioners too. so mine was at 76,000 miles and i rode it like I stole it!!
2002 FLHRI. I went to Andrews 26G cams, S&S gear drives at 36,000. Tensioners were in very good condition. A little expensive but worth the peace of mind.
2005 FLHT. Checked tensioners at 30,000 two years ago. One of them only had about 1/16" left. Changed them with the new style plastic shoes and upgraded cams. All good now!
I bought my 2005 flhtpi with 16k miles. Was getting ready to ride to Sturgis from Florida, So I pulled the cam chest cover. The tentioners were ready to be done! (See pictures) Picture 1 is outer and 2 is inner. Obviously inner was worn significantly more. Put in the S&S geardrives and never looked back. Hope this helps.
Note that most of the particles that have come off the shoes go through the scavenging side of the oil pump. This WILL leave deep groves in the alloy housing and the cam plate, wrecking both. Oil pressure is only affected minimally, but the engine will develop sumping problems, blowing smoke, oozing from breathers and the air cleaner. Any of these symptoms should cause alarm and prompt you to get the problem fixed before a catastrophic failure occurs, once all the plastic has worn off and metal strikes metal.
I bought my 2005 flhtpi with 16k miles. Was getting ready to ride to Sturgis from Florida, So I pulled the cam chest cover. The tentioners were ready to be done! (See pictures) Picture 1 is outer and 2 is inner. Obviously inner was worn significantly more. Put in the S&S geardrives and never looked back. Hope this helps.
2001 road king with 55,000 miles. oil pressure light came on so i pulled the cam chest apart and found plastic chunks in there. deep scratches in the oil pump so i replaced it with the screaming eagle upgrade plate and oil pump. got it put together by midnight and left for a 600 mile ride in the morning. the oil light flickered a couple times on the ride and made me nervous but it hasnt done it since
I'm accumulating parts to go to the Screaming Eagle hydraulic tensioners. I'm doing bearings at the same time. Inner bearings are easy to locate, but the outer bearings that go in the plate are proving to be difficult. I'd like Koyo/Torrington/Timken if I can get 'em, but so far I only find conflicting info.
Nearest I can tell it take two different sizes (?).
Anybody have the definitive part numbers for these bearings?
Thanks in advance.
Are we saying these are the same bearings as in the old, pre-2006?
If so, and IIRC, the rear is a special made only for the MoCo, and available only from them, as it was the same outside and inside diameter as the ball, but had to be a roller.
2 x Torrington (Koyo now) B-148 Inner cam bearings
1 x Nachi or SKF 6004 C3 Outer front cam ball bearing
1 x 8983 Outer rear cam roller bearing (only available from HD)
You may be "over-thinking" this a bit. The problem with the early cam bearing failures was not so much the quality of the bearing, but the WRONG bearing. The front and rear left the factory with ball-bearings and the rear bearing simply would not hold-up to the forces applied by the drive and driven chains. The fix was to install a roller-bearing in the rear....which solved the problem with the outer bearings. Not saying there has not been any failures with the front ball-bearing, but the major snafu was the rear bearing.
You should be able to get a bearing kit from just about any dealer, or even off e-bay or some other source and not be concerned about it. The inner bearings should be changed to the Timken/Torrington, because the stock inner bearings had plastic rollers in every-other slot. The Timken has all steel rollers.
I have done a few of these and in most cases, I simply reused the existing bearings that were in the old plate. The application of a little heat from a propane torch (around the bearing and not on it) on the old cam-plate will allow the bearings to simply fall out. I have had them just tap or fall out without any heat applied at all. If you have a lot of miles on the old bearings, or if the old rear bearing was a ball (yes...they are likely some still out there), then certainly a bearing replacement is in order. Get them from the dealer or another source. They should not be that hard to find. I'd try and use the ones in the old plate if the rear is the good roller. Yes....they may be damaged if you press them out, but you don't have to press them out and press them back in. None of those pressing blocks are necessary. That is just pure BS to help MOCO sell new parts.
You can PM me if you want to and establish an e-mail contact and I can tell you how to do this without all the special tools and pressing.
2006 Ultra with 41,000 mi. Amsoil Synthetic all the way. Thought I would check them and they are fine but I am doing a 95" build so I'm replacing them with the SE Hydraulic Camplate upgrade and Oil Pump.
If you have an Evo, it is the last of the gear drives, and if you don't have one of the years that had case porosity problems, you have, in my opinion, the best Harley engine ever made! Do be aware that they still have the hydraulic lifter problem that all Harley engines seem to have...they like to detonate at the wrong time, and certainly in the wrong place! If you have any significant miles on it, consider replacing the lifters and followers with a high quality unit, such as S&S or JIMS...some folks recommend doing this at 20-25K...mine went out at 24K...
2001 Road King classic
Had the SE hydro kit installed at about 40k. This is my touring bike and I'm not going to worry about the pads 4 states away from home. The pads were about half way, the cams looked bad and the bearings were questionable. Did it all has been fine since. 50k on it now.
I posted (#23) back in 2002. I now have about 82,000 miles on my bike. I have since (2002) replaced my tensioners twice. The next time I change the tensioners (4th time) I will be using the CYCO tensioners. I have them on my bench. I will be inspecting/replacing my tensioners this winter (2013).
If I knew how to post pictures I would love to show you guys some that I removed that had 60,000 miles on them. Amazingly they look damn near new the best I could measure with a depth gauge was .040 wear front and .045 rear. He doesn't ride hard just heavily laden with gear and the wifey. I just did the Upgraded Cam plate and oil pump upgrade kit on it with Wood 555R cams and the Bike is an 06 Ultra.
Just turned 115,000 miles on my 05 Road King. I replaced the spring tensioners in April 2007 at 38,000 miles with the Andrews special conversion cams, stock Harley hydraulic tensioners, 07 cam plate and roller chains. I did it myself for a total of $800 including the special tools. The bike has performed flawlessly ever since. No gear whine. Best thing I ever did to the bike. The people at Andrews are geniuses in my opinion. They came up with this solution -- much simpler and cheaper than going with the gear drive jury rig -- when Harley couldn't figure it out. All they did was take their 07 and later cams and turn down the rear shafts to fit into the pre-07 (pre-06 Dyna) cases. Slap in the stock 96 Twin Cam parts and you're ready to go.
Just finished my replacement of both tensioners.. Used the tools I rented from midwesttool88@gmail.com to remove the tensioners without pressing the cams out. Mine were cracked and one fell apart when I took it out at 28,000 miles.
Here is a pic of the tools... Cam chain tensioner release tool, two pins to hold the tensioners back, the tensioner removal tool.
Bancquo, I used the tools I rented from Midwesttool88@gmail.com. Rawhide Harley Davidson in Olathe KS has one of his tools which included the "Jim's tool". Here is a video he did, not great on the video but the tool is perfect. You still have to pull the whole cam plate to get to the inner tensioner but you don't have to press the bearings out or take the inner chain off, so no timing issues..
Thanks for that. It's a new one on me, but seems to work really well. I guess many will want to change the bearings when they are in there, but this is a great idea if you don't need to. Like you said, the guy could benefit from someone else holding the camera next time ;-)
Thanks for the link.
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