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Engines with roller chains on cam shafts cease to wear chain tensioners after the rollers start rolling.[/QUOTE]
Do they wear after rollers roll? Or is there not enough tensioner material to allow that?
I have a shot of them cleanly rolling impression on the tendioners. See below.
Now Harleys tensioners on link or roller chains do get hard and brittle eventually.
I realize it may be comparing apples to oranges but I rebuilt a 18R Toyota that had a simple hydraulic tensioner that was similar. The motor had 270K on it as I recall. There were clear signs of the rollers rolling.
Don't have a picture of Toyota one....long ago before I had a cellphone.. A new pc below that will live till the engine wears out from other issues.
....
Last edited by Jackie Paper; Apr 22, 2026 at 09:54 AM.
Do they wear after rollers roll? Or is there not enough tensioner material to allow that?
I have a shot of them cleanly rolling impression on the tendioners. See below.
Now Harleys tensioners on link or roller chains do get hard and brittle eventually.
I realize it may be comparing apples to oranges but I rebuilt a 18R Toyota that had a simple hydraulic tensioner that was similar. The motor had 270K on it as I recall. There were clear signs of the rollers rolling.
Don't have a picture of Toyota one....long ago before I had a cellphone.. A new pc below that will live till the engine wears out from other issues.
....
I still dont understand a damn thing youre saying or what the hell your point is. I showed my cam chain tensioners with 64K miles on them because the OP asked about the cam chain tensioners on the Rushmore bikes. Thats all and nothing more. You, however, ramble about engines with roller chains on cam shafts cease to wear chain tensioners after the rollers start rolling. That makes no sense whatsoever. Then, you start rambling about a Toyota? Jesus Christ!
I was just saying they will probably last the life of a Harley motor since wear stops when the links groove in and the rollers start rolling across the tensioner.
I think it would be a good idea if its true to have people in the know and not falling victim to people at shops scaming them on maintenance not needed.
Now if one is in there, sure doesn't hurt to replace them.
Unless it's been changed recently, Harley doesn't have a maintenance call out for tensioner inspection.
Now they should have on the pre 07 or so and older tensioners with link chains running on them. The tensioners are just too small for link chains.
Honda cars still have link chains on huge tensioners in there CRV model car. I have one . It has almost 200k on it. They were fine when I checked valves and put new plugs in it.
Last edited by Jackie Paper; Apr 22, 2026 at 09:55 AM.
@Ultra103 I recently went down a rattle rabbit hole myself. I was listening and hearing a metallic rattle that changed frequency with RPM. I was frustrated, as the motorcycle ran fantastic the previous day. [First ride: long winter]. Checked Primary: nope. Noise to far back to be engine. Sounded like inside the rear wheel / crossover exhaust area. Hmmm, could it be in the mufflers..? I pulled the left side muffler, and the muffler packing was completely gone on the bottom of the muffler. Looks like time and the baffle wore it away. Checked the right side, it was worse. Infact it blued the muffler a bit in the one area. I didn't see it as it was under the black heat shield. Ordered some from Amazon, but will order from Fullsac if the amazon is ****. [This was Fullsac material: installed with the 2.25" years ago.]
For a different reason, I changed out the fuel injectors form the stock [4.9 g/sec??] to 5.3 g/sec. I was hitting 85/90% duty cycle on previous TTS runs. Now with a cam installed, it'd be worse. Checking for fuel leaks and actual firing, I chose to start the motorcycle without the mufflers installed. [for a short duration].
Really sad, the catalytic converter pooped out on the floor.
[kidding aside: check the exhaust. Pull mufflers and look for rattling ****. I have 100,000 km on the odometer, and the mufflers hadn't been pulled apart since -- 10,000 km..?]
A sad day for the glaciers Where the music died. Now I will need to buy a new OEM head pipe. The evil products of combustion will rain black rain down upon the unicorns and forest dwellers.
I still don’t understand a damn thing you’re saying or what the hell your point is. I showed my cam chain tensioners with 64K miles on them because the OP asked about the cam chain tensioners on the Rushmore bikes. That’s all and nothing more. You, however, ramble about engines with roller chains on cam shafts cease to wear chain tensioners after the rollers start rolling. That makes no sense whatsoever. Then, you start rambling about a Toyota? Jesus Christ!
FWIW...
The discussions over the old spring cam tensioner wear compared to the newer style hydraulic cam tensioner wear, is not limited to just the tensioner design or pad material.
A big part of that discussion is also due to the chains used between the cam gears (behind the cam plate) and the cam/crank gears (on the front of the cam plate).
The early Twin Cams used spring cam tensioners and link-style chains.
The '07+ Twin Cams used hydraulic cam tensioners and roller chains.
The excessive and fast wear of the early Twin Cam, spring cam tensioner pads is partially the spring pressure, and partially due to the link-style chains.
The much longer lasting later Twin Cam tensioners, are due to less tension from the hydraulic design AND the better roller chains.
The link chains wear into the cam tensioner pads. It happens at a constant and consistent rate..
The roller chains wear into the cam tensioner pads until the rollers between the chain side plates come in contact with the pads. Then the rollers roll over the pads, and greatly reduce the amount the chain will wear away the pad.
If you look at the wear on your pads at 60K miles, then look at the wear on an early Twin Cam with half the miles, you can see how the different chain designs affect the type & extent of pad wear.
Your pads, with roller chains, at 64K miles:
Here are two pics of spring pads with link style chains. The first is a pads at about 19K miles, and 18 years old. The secnd off the internet, IIRC, had about 30K miles.
Last edited by hattitude; Apr 22, 2026 at 09:31 AM.
Why are you so upset? You clearly stated and showed the tensioners where OK at 64K
I was just saying they will probably last the life of a Harley motor since wear stops when the links groove in and the rollers start rolling across the tensioner.
I think it would be a good idea if its true to have people in the know and not falling victim to people at shops scaming them on maintenance not needed.
Now if one is in there, sure doesn't hurt to replace them.
Unless it's been changed recently, Harley doesn't have a maintenance call out for tensioner inspection.
Now they should have on the pre 07 or so and older tensioners with link chains running on them. The tensioners are just too small for link chains.
Honda cars still have link chains on huge tensioners in there CRV model car. I have one . It has almost 200k on it. They were fine when I checked valves and put new plugs in it.
Youve been called out before about your incomprehensible posts, yet you keep on keeping on with incoherent verbal diarrhea, much like another member whose name I wont mention. Look up Logorrhea when you get a chance. It describes you perfectly.
@hattitude what is the call out in a 2014 in the Harley Service manual for replacing tensioners?
Does it show a wear depth just for the links?
Off the top of my head.... it says a percentage of the pad wear (I forget the amount) and/or cracking of the pads for replacement.
I look at some older spring pads with little wear but severely chipped, pock marked pad faces and figure, IMHO, that's as bad as cracking... So I change them....
Off the top of my head.... it says a percentage of the pad wear (I forget the amount) and/or cracking of the pads for replacement.
I look at some older spring pads with little wear but severely chipped, pock marked pad faces and figure, IMHO, that's as bad as cracking... So I change them....
Of course your last paragraph applies and probably anytime one is tearing a motor down for overhaul, tensioner pad should be replaced.
However, for the pre 2007 or link chain TC, the wear limit was half the pad thickness.
A 2014 Tour roller chain tensioner is 0.06 left. Now if rollers are rolling, can it get to 0.06 left?
Anyone have a OEM 2014 tensioner to accurately mesure the pad thickness with a caliper?
Anyone have a OEM 2014 roller chain laid flat, how far down from the links are the rollers?
Interestingly a 2018 Softail doesn't give a call out for wear depth.
My guess is the pads are treated as replace just like gaskets by 2018. However, you don't need to tear it down just to inspect it.
Last edited by Jackie Paper; Apr 22, 2026 at 11:22 AM.
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