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Replaced mine at 22,500, and will replace again at 42,500 or 45,000. Hopefully will be fine. Mine were showing signs of wear, but not bad. May convert to hydraulic. Not gears though, like my stereo too much and the gears are too noisy.
Replaced mine at 22,500, and will replace again at 42,500 or 45,000. Hopefully will be fine. Mine were showing signs of wear, but not bad. May convert to hydraulic. Not gears though, like my stereo too much and the gears are too noisy.
You might want to ride one that has been converted. I did cams, gear drive and 95" about 27K miles ago. I cannot hear it. My bud's 03 was done in 05 and cant hear it either.
Gear drive is the only way to go. Eliminates timing variations due to slack in chains. Fix it and forget it....
I tried to go the gear drive route. Replaced the cams etc... because at 32,000 the inner tesnioner went down to the metal frame of the tensioner. I decided to get rid of the chain drive and went to gears. I had one of the rare exemples of a twin cam that had a noisey gear drive set up. No matter what I did to try and quite things down. I put the stock cams and chain drive back in and the bike is quite as a mouse. I replaced the cam plate and oil pump with the SE billet plate/pump combo. I got the spring loaded cam tensioner set up. Just after I ordered they came out with the hydualic set up. I would have gone that route if I could have. Oh well, I can ride now and stop wrenching. If you get a good gear drive combo you will never have to worry about it again. The hydrualic set up is reported to be much better than the old set up; wither way you win. Good luck.
I just upgraded mine to the SE hydraullic setup with Andews 26 cams at 27k miles. My shoes actually were in pretty good shape and both were only worn about 40%.
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2006 Road King Classic
Vivid Black
95" with heads ported by Big Boyz
V&H True Duals and Ovals
SE hydraulic tensioner upgrade
Andrews 26 cams
SERT
Like everyone says on this subject, every bike is different. Some people can go 60K without a problem. Too bad there is not more continuity as far as this is concerned.
Biting the bullet for a gear drive set up is tough. But it is also the ONLY option that is worry free. Even the hydraulic set up has shoes that wear even though it's at a slower rate than the spring type. If peace of mind is your objective and your budget will withstand it then bite that bullet. If you stay with the spring set up check them every 10K mi. - no longer. They can self destruct at any time. I had two buddies that did unwanted rebuilds at less than 7K mi. due to damage from the spring tensioners failing so be advised.
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Just smart enough to know how stupid I am.
From what I read they started with the hydraulic tensioner in 07 and they said they have not had to replace a single one from that year forward. I hope one day there will be a recall so I am saving my bill to get my money back!
Don't hold your breath for a recall, but I think you made the right decision if you plan on keeping the bike for the long-term. I had my cam-plate out on my '07 recently to upgrade cams to SE255's and at 25k the tensioners showed only some minor wear marks. I'd have to say that <5% of the material was worn on either one and I obviously didn't replace them, so my guess is that the problem is fixed.
As for wear on early TC's, I see no consistency from bike to bike. I've seen some go out at 20k and one friend had his checked for the first time at 70k, only after I nagged him to death with warnings of impending doom, which in his case was in the nick of time. I believe wear is a matter of quality control on the tensioner material more than any other factor, as the type or brand of oil doesn't seem to matter.
I second the idea of changing cams while you're in there, as that should add only a small amount of time to the job and cost very little more than the cost of the cams. Also, pull the old INA inner bearings and install some Timkins (B-148), <$15 for the bearings and maybe 10 min. of shop time. Yes, you'll have to buy a tuner, but a dyno tune is only required for some tuning options.
__________________ 2007 Street Ultra
Stage 1½: Fuel Moto Power Package, SE255 cams.
That just AIN'T right!!!!!!
