Oops, I mean "Rode" home. Damn, you can't edit the title?

I've been waiting on this to happen for a while. The guys at work I ride with are on 05-06 Road Kings and Street Glides. (50K Plus Miles) They're always bustin' my ***** about doing my own maintenance and services. I've always wondered when one of them was going to eat up a tensioner. One guy putted home because he heard a strange sound coming from the right side of his engine. When he described it to me I asked him, "Has the dealer ever checked your cam chain tensioners when you take it in for service." "I don't know." After trailering to the shop and a week later, bingo, I was right. The interesting part was his outside tensioner is the one that ate it. What was left of it fell to the bottom of the cover and didn't do any damage.

I found it interesting that it didn't damage anything else. It was quite an expensive fix though. I'm wondering if dealers know about this but don't do preventative checks in order to get the big job of doing the repair after the damage is done.

 

I'm wondering if dealers know about this but don't do preventative checks in order to get the big job of doing the repair after the damage is done.
Not saying that it applies to every dealer, but you might be on to something there. I pointed out to my dealer a noise coming from the primary, a noise that wasn't there 2k miles ago. They said, it's normal, the chain getting loose and making some noise until the automatic tensioner moves 1 click and it will be tighter again. It will take 100mi to happen they said. 1500mi after the noise is still there.
I bet I have a problem that will need a repair next spring when the warranty is off.
But right now I can't open the primary myself and try to have a look or "it will void my warranty". I'm stuck. I guess I'll have them to make a note that I'm highlighting the noise coming from the primary and if something happens after I'll see if I can hook them on that.

 

The only time my bike has been in the shop since new is when I was getting the knock from the compensator and hot-start kickback. I told them after they open the primary to put synthetic back in. The man replied, "If I put synthetic in your primary, I'll have to change the oil and transmission as well to put synthetic in all 3 holes." One, I already had synthetic in all 3. Second, I came back to the dealer and they never opened the primary. They put screamin' eagle spark plugs in and charged me 75 Euro! Nevertheless, I went home bought a SE Compensator online and did it myself. Problem solved.

 

That is interesting. Seems it's usually the inner that fails first/worst. That's the way it was with my '04 Dyna Defender.

The HD manual (foolishly) says nothing about checking the tensioners on the '99-'05 TC88's during normal maint, so I gather dealers usually did not. My scoot was a cop bike, and was maintained by the dealership in the city where the cops bought it. When I got it from the cops at 45K miles, I immediately opened up the cam chest and as I suspected, the inner tensioner was in pieces with steel tensioner pressing against chain, and outer was badly worn although the friction material was still intact. Obviously, never been looked at. Why the small pieces of friction material from the inner did not destroy the oil pump is anybodys guess.

 

MY '03 was only serviced 2 times by the dealer in 30k mi. At 30 the warranty expired so I opened her up to install new pistons heads and cams. Was very surprised to see at 30 k mi both tensioners wore way apst the service limit mark in the plastic. Got 50k mi. on her now and thinking it must me about time to take another look...

 

I don't think that the MoCo wants to acknowledge the problem because it might make them liable for repairs to some degree. The tensioners in my '04 RK didn't look too bad at 50K miles but I think they should be checked at 30K.

 

Checking the tensioners is not like checking the air in your tires, there is a bit more involved. I'd say any dealer you take your motorcycle to will check your tensioners if you ask ( and pay for the time / labor ).

 

No it won't.

 

Tensioners are crap. Everyone that decides to keep that crap in their cam chest should have a inspection plan and towing insurance. Everytime I see one of these tensioner threads I wonder what kind of inspection they do to their own bikes before rides and on schedules. When is the last time any of you actually put your bike on a lift and took a flashlight while rotating the back tire to inspect belt, pulleys, tire, and rim? All this crap needs maintenance sooner or later. The way social security works is you get to draw it if you live long enough while the other guy dies before he gets to draw his.

 

I gotta buddy that owns a bike shop and he almost makes a living on twin cam cam failures for one thing or another or putting in gear drives. You gotta twin cam your going to have cam problems sometime down the road.