I have an 02 Electraglide with 45k that has never given me any problems. Now however, someone has planted a concern in my OCD head...

Seems as though I should check the cam chain tensioners? I asked what symptom would point in that direction, and the answer was pretty vague...a noisy cam chain? I can't hear much above my Samson slip-ons.

I was told someone else had an excessively worn tensioner at 28k...at 45k what shape are mine in?

What sort of experience has the collective had on this topic?

Thanks in advance,
HDJeff

 

If I were you I definitely would be checking those tensioners right now. I have a friend that has 60,000 miles on a 99 and has never checked his but there are a lot of people out there that have had problems starting in the 20,000 mile range.

 

I changed mine at 22,500 miles, and will do it again at 45, 000 miles. they were worn some, but not excessive really. I've seen them with excessive wear at 65, 000 miles, but still working. I would certainly replace them like now. Going to the hydraulic conversion kit might be a good idea. they did not have it when I changed mine.

 

You have a valid concern jsgilbert2, I wouldnt put it off much longer, there is no magic number but the concensus is somewhere around 30k.
I replaced the tensioners in my brides 02 RK at 30,100 and the rear shoe was nearly gone.
Have a friend with a 06 RG with 37 and his were fine.

It's a reasonably easy check and I encourage you to get it done soon.

good luck

 

Yea i would open up the cam cover and look at them to see how they look.....the back one is hard to see but it is the one that fails first. If it was me i would just replace them or go to gear drive cams and then you dont have to worry about them anymore.

 

Open the cam chest and have a look unless you want to be replacing a lot more than just the tensioners.

 

When yo change your oil, take the old oil filter and cut it in half. Check the contents inside. If there are orange chunks of plastic, that means the tensioners are so worn that the sidewall of the plastic is breaking off, and it's time for a change.

Pulling the cam cover off only allows examination of the outer chain tensioner, and there's no way of seeing the inner, so that's a waste of time.

Joe

 

The cam chain tensioners are a wear item, like your tires. So, wear is normal and the Service Manual for your bike probably says the wear limit is 50% at which point they should be replaced.

On my '04, at 40K miles I noticed fluctuating oil pressure that was different from the oil pressure change you see when it drops when the engine is hot and at idle compared to cruise oil pressure. The tensioners were worn beyong the service wear limit and the rear was near failure (almost no pad material leading to metal to metal contact between the chain and tensioner).

It was a surprise to me that there is nothing in the scheduled maintenance info provided by HD that calls for checking the tensioners and it was only from reading on HDF about the issue that I had mine checked.

You can check the rear tensioner with a dental mirror. With 42K on your bike, I'd definitely have them visually inspected. It's very likely that they are at least worn to or beyond the service wear limit even if they aren't near imminent failure. Also, I don't know of any empirical data that says that wear is linear and it may be that wear tends to increase in rate once the pad has become worn to 50% or so. I mention this because the temptation is to conclude that although the pad is worn to the limit, it will be good for another 10K or 20K based on the prior rate of pad wear.

 

This is what mine looked like at around 40,000 miles. I didn't really have any reason other than the hype on forums to check them and figured that since the bike was up on the lift, that they should be checked. Not much left of the rear one.

Like I said, nothing in the sound of the bike hinted at a problem.

 

I have a 2004 flhti with 24000 on it and notice last night the oil pressure fluctuating at highway speed when engine is hot tonight i'm going to put a live gauge on it could it be stoping the filter up?