it wore a hole through my cam cover! I noticed the side of my freshly cleaned 2000 flht covered in oil spray at a pit stop! Boy that will teach me to quit washing her and ride instead. I found a small 1/4 by 1/8 inch hole next to the edge of the cam cover just before a mounting bolt and rode her a couple miles home.
After pulling the cover i saw a much larger gash on the inside of the cover and also saw a broken link in the silent chain which was flipped outward and had caused the damage.
After more inspection i found 2 broken clips from the plastic chain guide on the bottom of the case! I don't know which came first, broken link or broken plastic.
So far, it's been cam bearing failure which Harley did pay to replace, an oil pump that was about useless and caused a new top end rebuild , my dime although my mechanic thought they were related! Me too. I am on my third set of chain tensioners with only 35000 miles because i have 2 other bikes... Ducati's but that's another story.

Thats it for the old chain tensioners and silent chains ! Im thinking of ordering the new S.E. hydraulic tensioner kit # 25284-11 they recently came out with that has the new oil pump and roller chains and would like to know if it's compatible with the conversion cams such as Andrews n cams, woods etc. ???
I currently have S.E. 211's, S.E. performance heads , adjustable ignition, air cleaner with cobra true duals and thunderheader slip on's and would like a recomendation on which cams that are comprable to the 211's .I did not change the valve spring's on The S.E. performance heads though to the heavy duty ones so i think the maximun cam lift is limited to .510 but i'm not positive so your imput is greatly appeciated.

 

I would get rid of the cam chains & go with gear drive!
Hatch.

 

I'd be worried about the ground up junk being all through the motor.

if you hope for a worry free riding season have the motor torn down, all new bearings etc.

It has been shown ( Donny Peterson wrote about this in American Iron in 99,00, 01, 02) that the debris from a cam chest problem makes it's way all through the motor, some may be caught by the filter but some may bypass the filter, and much of it goes between the rollers in the pinion bearing- as the pistons go up and down air is pushed back and forth through the bearing and that can carry particles of steel, aluminum and plastic

Any debris found in the oil tank is proof that it passed all through the motor to get there.

At time of rebuild price out a gear drive system like S&S and never have to worry about it again.

Mike

 

After the top end fiasco my guy did go through as many oil pathways as possible to flush and clean. I have put about 12k hard riding miles on it since without any problems until now so any previous floating debris should have been gone, don't you think ?
Im not really familiar with gear drive , how do i check for runoff so it's not a problem?
Thanks for your input ,Hog

 

No- the debris from this latest incident !


Mike

 

"I'd be worried about the ground up junk being all through the motor.

if you hope for a worry free riding season have the motor torn down, all new bearings etc"

Good suggestion mkguitar. I'm not a motor guy so could you expand a bit on torn down as in how far to go and what to replace and clean?

 

everything.

if the chain is grinding metal inside the cam chest, that metal and plastic debris will be all through the motor.

should you not, at some point there will be a failure which could result in the cases being damaged or holed


basically it's all the headaches from the last failure repeated.



In your shoes I might look for a take off 96" and adapt that rather than the labor/parts on yours- I've seen a couple of 96" under 2K
You'd have to sort out injection though...and ignition...hmmm maybe if the 88 isn't too hurt...




Mike

 

You will be money ahead if you order the new S.E. hydraulic tensioner kit,
but you will be more money ahead if you go with the gear drive cams

 

Bingo .... Been there done that for a friend .... cam chain tensioners took a dump and before he realized what was making all the racket, all pieces/parts had squirted through the entire engine .... total dis-assembly and major reconstructive surgery ..... be careful and get ALL THE CRAP OUT OF THE ENGINE .... When you're sure it's all gone ... DO IT AGAIN!

 

Thanks for the info everyone.