What about the cranks though? Still pressed together and no nut... Sealed wheel bearings to boot.

 

93k on mine and records indicate a top end and lifters (A lifters.... yikes) at 30k. Not sure what cam and pistons it has, but the comp is 180 each and dynoed at 78hp. Not stock....

 

What did HD do in 2008 to address these issues? Would you say that the 2008-up TC is just as dependable as an Evo?

Thanks.

 

Mine made it to 106K until a service call put the wrong oil filter on it ............. cooked it in 400 mile.

 

This is one reason I try to do all my own work.

 

My 98 RKC has 60k on it and the only thing done to the motor is new rocker gaskets, due to the PO letting it sit for 10 years and only putting 2,500 miles on it before I could afford to buy it.



carl

 

I had a TC once & after 61K miles I swapped out the cams& cam tenurers ,it was a 03 E Glide after that it became a money pit & I sold it cause my 94 Evo soft tail was still setting there , Now with 66500 K miles a cam bearing let go so doing a top end & EV27 cam , wife can't ride far anymore & I have two bad knees so the softail is the way to go for me

 

I had an 05 EG and put 87,000 miles on it. I'd still have it except I banged it up kissing a mini-van. My Brother wanted it so I bought a new one and he got the 05. He's still riding it. At 20K, I added a race tuner, bumped it to 95", hi-comp pistons, SE heads and SE 211 cams. Replaced the cam chain tensioners at 55K miles. The bike was and is ridden HARD. Great bike!

 

Since it's been mentioned. I believe it was 2006 when MOCO implemented the hydraulic cam chain tensioner system and I did retrofit the last TC I had. I do my own work and it cost around $400 for the kit and I really do think that was the final fix for the tensioner issue. I believe that was why the reference was made to getting a 2008 or newer TC and you'd be good-to-go....and you likely would. BUT...if you have to pay the dealer to have this done you're in the $1500 range. If I still had an early TC, I would retrofit it and be done with it as opposed to replacing the tensioner shoes with upgraded brands of shoe material. My dealer gets $500 just to crack-open the cam-chest. I just don't want the worry over my head. I stand a better chance of fixing an EVO on the side of the road....and have. I decided that I would not own a Harley that was smart enough to shut-down one cylinder at a stop-light to prevent it from burning itself down. That's just getting too smart for me. There were some other not-so-good changes made to the TC along the way that make it a bit more unreliable and we could talk for hours about all that.

I'm back home with an EVO and that's where I'll stay thank you. You can't melt-n-pour another TC on me, especially a new one. Honda, Kawasaki, Victory, Yamaha...and others can and have built very good reliable oil-cooled engines. Harley could have too......but they didn't. A good pair of heads, a little tweaking and you can pump out just as many ponies from an EVO as you can a TC. It just depends on how reliable you want it to be.

 

Going from 2 evos that I ran for many years and miles to a 2011 twinkie, from my experience I would say yes, the later (2008 and up) twinkies with the hydraulic cam chain tenioner system can be as reliable as an EVO.

I'm not saying they are perfect or are easier to work on than an evo, but I'd say motor to motor, from my expeience they are as reliable.

Going from an 89 bagger to an 11 Streetglide, I miss my carb, I miss the simplicity of the the overall bike, I miss having a real throttle with throttle cables, servicable wheel bearings and I dont trust the 6 speed as much as i did my 5 speeds for relaiblity.

That being said, the frame , swingarm and larger gas tank and the milage I can get out of the bigger rear tire are great! The overall handeling of the bike is light years ahead of my old 89 and so far with 20k on the clock, the bike has been dead nuts reliable, just basic maintenance and tires to be replaced.