2006 Road King police model. Near 60,000 miles. I went ahead and removed the exhaust and cam cover so I could peek at the tensioners since it's something everyone discusses being concerned about.
I wasnt able to get a good look at the rear tensioner. I snapped the best pic I could of both. The rear did have slightly more wear on the pad from what I could tell I just couldn't get it lifted high enough to pin it open.
I attached two pics for you guys to see. From everything I've seen and read it would appear that I'm in the clear for at least this season. It would appear as if whichever department had this police model probably did this repair once already given the amount of wear and the amount of mileage.
Let me me know if you think something looks abnormal.
I realize you can't really see the rear tensioner at all in this pic. If only I had a third arm...
The grooves where the chain rides in were just slightly deeper than the grooves on the front tensioner but I could not get a look at the surface that meets the chain.
I realize you can't really see the rear tensioner at all in this pic. If only I had a third arm...
The grooves where the chain rides in were just slightly deeper than the grooves on the front tensioner but I could not get a look at the surface that meets the chain.
WOW those look better than my 2001 FLSTC with 52,000 miles.
I had mine done in January to the SE hydraulic upgrade.
WOW those look better than my 2001 FLSTC with 52,000 miles.
I had mine done in January to the SE hydraulic upgrade.
I just got this RK at the end of last season and am already pouring money into various cosmetic changes. Was hoping to avoid this repair cost if it wasn't necessary at this time. But eventually I will save up and swap out for new cams and gear drive etc...
About the only real way to see the inner is to realize that once the link pins get close, that is the maximum wear depth. My thought is if you can inspect it yourself, then your first check will tell you when to look again. However, you also ought to consider that hot oil hardens delrin and the shoe can crack resulting in pretty rapid failure that if that happens is going to dump metal in the cam galley and thru the engine pretty quick.
So at 10 year, I think you should pull the cam-plate, inspect inner cam bearings and oil pump end play. Replace the two shoe spring assemblies, pump o-ring and couple gaskets. That plastic chunks hurt nothing. I really think those craters you see is from high chain speed and oil cavatation. Literal bubbles of oil exploding blowing out those hunks. Do you ever turn up past 4K or more very often.
60 K is good life for link chain shoes. Seen people go thru them at 15K that bump the rev limiter all the time.
Don't fall for the so called SE upgrade, at least as an upgrade. It still leave the inner link chain that never stop wearing, so it probably does little for improved life. Never seen a post with a so called SE upgrade yet by someone who inspected him self with 50 K on it to show any better life. Lot of tin men however says it does with the hydraulic tensioner. However, why that works on newer bikes is they have roller chains that roll after they groove in and the rollers hit.
JUST MY OPINION HOWEVER SINCE YOU ASK
Last edited by Jackie Paper; 02-27-2017 at 07:04 PM.
About the only real way to see the inner is to realize that once the link pins get close, that is the maximum wear depth. My thought is if you can inspect it yourself, then your first check will tell you when to look again. However, you also ought to consider that hot oil hardens delrin and the shoe can crack resulting in pretty rapid failure that if that happens is going to dump metal in the cam galley and thru the engine pretty quick.
So at 10 year, I think you should pull the cam-plate, inspect inner cam bearings and oil pump end play. Replace the two shoe spring assemblies, pump o-ring and couple gaskets. That plastic chunks hurt nothing. I really think those craters you see is from high chain speed and oil cavatation. Literal bubbles of oil exploding blowing out those hunks. Do you ever turn up past 4K or more very often.
60 K is good life for link chain shoes. Seen people go thru them at 15K that bump the rev limiter all the time.
Yes I will open it up getting on the highway on ramps but that's about it. Too much traffic otherwise. I am still fairly new to riding as well so I'm more on the conservative side and try to follow shifting at proper speeds/RPM recommendations.
If I ought to pull the plate I would probably leave that to a professional. Not really confident in my mechanical abilities or tool availability to do something like that myself. Heck I had a hell of a time just removing the exhaust! Haha. Can't wait to put that back on and see what goes wrong.
My bike has stock exhaust. All I need to do is remove the heat shield. Mine looked like yours at 30K. Now at 50.
So you were able to get to all the screws and remove the cover with the exhaust still in place? Well at least I can say I know how to remove my exhaust now haha
So you were able to get to all the screws and remove the cover with the exhaust still in place? Well at least I can say I know how to remove my exhaust now haha
Only problem I had was popping the whole cover. I finally made a false cover same size as the timer cover. It has a center hole for my sliding hammer. I bolt it on and pop it that way.
May want to replace that exhaust crush ring gasket in the manifold. Be sure everything is back together loose before tightening. Not too tight that you ring the slip on and later make it a pain to pull off the pipe.
Last edited by Jackie Paper; 09-14-2018 at 07:48 AM.
02-27-2017, 06:27 PM
Cam tensioners look ok right?
