Long story short, I bought a 2002 Road king with 74,000 miles from the brother of the owner (deceased 4 years). The bike has not been ridden much for the past 6 years, but when the owner was alive, he put a lot of miles on it.

He also did all his own work - attached are the notes I got with the bike, along with the owners manual and Harley Service Manual. The bike runs great, no smoke, no ticks, and sets you back in the seat when you roll the throttle.

Can you tell me what I have here from these notes?

 

You probably have a good bike there. If I'm reading it correctly, looks to me like the cam chain tensioners were maintained regularly and then eventually swapped out for gear drive.

 

Any way to tell other than removing the cover? Would give me peace of mind if I knew for sure.

 

You should be able to hear gear drives.

 

Looks like the original owner, RIP, liked doing his own work. I see he knew his ****, kept good notes, Cyborg Cycle were the go to discount parts guys back in the day when they were in business.
As for hearing gear cams, nope. Unless there is a serious tolerance issue.
EVO motors were gear cams and you never heard gear whine.
I have been running gear drive cams on my '03 Ultra Classic since I installed them when the bike was new. No gear noise.
How does the bike run?

 

Check things that are totally obvious, like does it in fact have the Metzler 880 tire and Progressive 440 Shocks. If so, I would bet money its also got at least the vast majority of the other stuff. Which, by the looks of it, yeah, this guy knew his stuff and really maintained his bike with what he considered the best parts available. Sounds like you may have really hit a winner with this bike.

 

The bike runs great, tons of torque. On my first ride on it I pulled onto a country road and came up through the gears....I looked down and was doing 85...and it didn't seem like I traveled too far from where I started, and there was a lot of throttle left. Not much to compare it too though, as I'm a noob to street bikes, and really haven't rode anything other than the 1988 883 Sportster I bought in August. It makes it seem very whimpy, even though the King weighs almost 2x as much.

Can't wait for Spring...in the meantime I'm cleaning and polishing everthing, as the bike is very dirty and there was some surface rust on some of the chrome. Everything I've polished has come back very nicely so far, the old girl is staring to look good.

 

Thie tires are Metzlers, but the shocks are Harley air (part of a Harley lowering kit). I got the original shocks in the Harley kit box, and they look like new. Hmm.

 

If you got it at the right price it sounds like a solid, well maintained scoot