Twin Cam 88 chain tensioner

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Nov 3, 2009 | 01:01 PM

Badlarry

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6th Gear

Joined: Jul 2009

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From: Belgrade, ME 04917

Twin Cam 88 chain tensioner

I was at the local Harley Dealer the other day when a friend of mine told me that if your twin cam has around 40,000 miles on it, you should have the cam chain tensioners replaced and possibly the cams. This is the first I have heard of this. Whatever happened to the stories you hear of people putting over 100,000 miles on and have done nothing to the motor? He also told me that pieces of the tensioners will break and go into the oil pump and loose oil pump pressure. Tell me what you have heard or experienced.

Badlarry

Nov 3, 2009 | 01:03 PM

VTwin-Goodies

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From: SoCal

This is true. The cam chain tensioner shoes are the weak point of the twin cam 88's. Pull the cam cover off and have a look at the shoes. They are the orange things. Do a forum search, there are a ton of threads about this subject.

Nov 3, 2009 | 01:04 PM

Geoff

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From: Nevada

The tensioner won't necessarily break, but the shoes will be worn by 40k miles. Harley offers an automatic tensioner for the TC88.

Nov 3, 2009 | 01:06 PM

petemac

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From: MA

Yep, it's a wear item, inspect and replace as needed. The cams are unrelated but a lot of people swap them if they're going to replace the existing tensioner setup. I did.

Nov 3, 2009 | 01:11 PM

TazInCT

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From: Connecticut

You should definitely have a look at them to see where you stand. There has been a problem with the tensioners as your friend explained. I changed mine at 25K and they were not shot and I would have been comfortable going another 10K before having another look, but I changed them while I was in there. Your cams are fine, but lots of people also decide to change out the cam while they are in there for performance reasons. Also, if you change to gear drive cams, you will never have to worry about the tensioners again. Me, I changed the tensioners and through in some Andrews tw26 cams for some low end torque but neither were necessary.... yet.

Nov 3, 2009 | 01:19 PM

Scout

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From: (Toronto) Canada

A real easy check without pulling the side off is next time you do an oild change is to cut the oil filter in half and look if the is any small orange plastic in the filter/oil. If so, the tensioners are bad and need to be replaced.

BTW, just pulling the cover off only shows one tensioner, the back one is hard to check, so if the front loks O.K. that really doesn't tell the whole story.

Nov 3, 2009 | 01:20 PM

FastHoss

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Joined: Dec 2007

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From: Green Country,Oklahoma

Changed the tensioners at 30,000 on mine,not even half wear,lifters,cam bearings,adj.pushrods.Was in it already so went ahead and changed them out.Unless I hear something or see something out of the norm,I will not open her up again.I let the internet hocus pocus get to me.