I am building up the courage to do a cam swap in my next life, and I see that the inner cam bearing removal and installation tools vary extensively in price, notice I didn't say quality because I just don't know. I see JIMs makes a very expensive one, George's makes them, Gary Beatty makes them, and MBS Mfg makes them. I have been asking individual people their opinions, but just decided to put it on the table to see what everyone else thinks.

 

All the tools you mentioned will work. I have the Beatty tool and a Heartland Products tool; I use the Heartland Products tool. You can find them on Ebay for anywhere from $50 to $105 and you can get them with adapters to work on TC88s and 96s. Just call the vendor and make sure you know what you are getting.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Harley-David...sories&vxp=mtr

 

I have purchased several of the Heartland tool sets, and I agree they are a good value. If I ran a shop I would purchase the Jims tools, but for the hobbyist, Heartland is perfect.

 

When I did my cam change I bought the inner cam bearing removal tool for George's garage. Worked like a charm.
I know this will be of no help to you Sandcrab, but I made my own bearing installation tool (I'm a machinist) that sets the face of the bearing .020 to the inside of the inside face of the camchest.

 

You can also rent the tool off E-Bay for $35 I believe.

 

I've just completed a cam bearing R&R (remove ad reinstall) on someone's bike and used the AutoZone "loaner" blind hole puller (leave a hefty deposit on a credit card which is returned when the tool is returned), which (very surprisingly to me) worked better than the Jims puller I used while working part time in an independent hot rod mc shop; it grabbed the bearing more tightly with no danger of pushing bearing rollers into the case because its "unexpanded" diameter is much smaller than the bearing's inner diameter. For installation I did as lowriderbob did: I made a drift that sets the bearing .020" below the surface of the case (I'm an amatuer machinist). It sounds barbaric, but as long as you drive the bearing straight, lube it and the case with light oil, light blows on the drift with a fairly heavy hammer tap it right into place with zero issues. Even more barbaric, I've used a deep socket in the past for the same job and set the bearing depth by "feel" (leave one bearing in, "feel" how far below the case it is with my thumb, check the new one to see if it "feels" the same, etc.)... this was the method I used on my own bike over 30,000 miles ago and have had zero issues with that. I am not promoting barbarism here, and I should pehaps say that I've been a car mechanic for many years and have done this sort of thing in other applications many times... my point is that if one is careful and uses common sense a lot can be accomplished with a minimum of specialty tools.