I bought a 2000 Road King last year with 1800 miles on it from a boat dealer friend of mine.
I had to run it with the choke open just to get it home because it had been sitting for about 2 years and as soon as I got it up on my lift I took off the carb and cleaned it. I rode it a couple thousand miles and then put on Vance and Hines true duels, took the load spead jet up 1 size to .48, drilled the air fuel mixture plug out and adjusted it. I went to a high flow air filter and adjusted my Hooker Tunable exhaust all the way open. The bike starts easily, runs, and sounds great.
I now have 7200 miles on it with NO PROBLEMS.
Now I am talking to several people with cam bearing going bad!!!!
I contacted the factory and was told my bike was built on August 19, 1999 and they considered it a late model build and the cam problem had been corrected however I obtained service bullitin from a tech friend at my local Harley dealer and it doesn't mention anything about them correcting the problem.
Does any body have any imput about the cam problem that occured during that build year?
Should I go ahead and replace them now before they go bad?
If I don't replace the cams with either stock or gear drive is alot of damage going to occur if they go bad while I going down the road and ruin the entire engine?
Thanks for any input!!!!!!! [sm=feedback.gif]

 

As Chuck Yeager used to say, "Why wait for trouble"? Maybe those cam bearings are good, maybe not. Replace 'em. Gear driven cams also get rid of the other engine-eater, the cam chain tensioner shoes.
Lots of info on this Forum if you'll do a Search. Lots of happy Andrews 26 cam users with baggers.

 

HD can tell you specifically whether or not your bike has the bad bearing. If you called and gave them the correct motor number and they said it is an unaffected model, then you are o.k.

My bike is an early '00. It had the "bad bearing". I rode it for 5 years/52k, before updating. It never gave me problems. I only updated because the goodwill 5 year/50k warranty HD gave on the bearing had expired. BTW, I went to a gear drive. I'm glad I did. Now I don't have to worry about my cam chain tensioners any more, even though mine were still in good shape at 52k.

If you have a bad bearing and it fails several things can happen. It can just start making noise and you can get it fixed before any damage occurs or it can totally fly apart and send metal thru out your engine taking it out.

 

I had 15k on the cam guides they where starting to grove see worse, I went with 510 cams and gears ,reed oiler that works good no spotting on the ground.and no gear noise no timeing noise.Tremendas amount of torque .Befor with the 203 cams 95cc 80 hp 94 tq a bunch strounger now.

 

99 ,2000 2001 are the same creature from what I have seen in the service manual.