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Wondering if anybody can help me out? I got a 2004 Fatboy with the 88b motor my problem is I want to update the cam shoes to hydraulic. What I'm trying to find is a complete kit where he has every single thing that has to be replaced is is there such a thing? I seem to be able to only find the shoes the plate and the replacement oil pump. I was just hoping there was somewhere that the offered a complete boxed kit of every single thing you need from start to finish. Thank you
something like this? I'm not a mechanic by no means. So the more experience guys can chime in. I looked into this a lot this year but decided to hold off till next year, My plan is on doing everything when it's opened up.
Harley's do a kit , like fuelinparts, the trouble is they only surply one roller chain, and it's the chains that cause the damage. To end up with two roller chains you have to change the cam as well as I recall. Have you checked your cam shoes ? Some people get 40/50,000 miles out of the old sprung loaded shoes, while others maybe get only 15/20,000 as I say depends on how rough the chains are to begin with.
About 6 years ago, I installed Harley's "hybrid" kit. But this kit comes with most everything you'll need.
I don't believe there is a totally complete kit out there. Some pieces will need to be bought separately.
For instance, I got my cams and pushrods from Andrews.
Much has been posted about the lack of a roller chain on the back side of the hybrid kit. I just did a 30,000 mile inspection of my tensioners. Here are the pics
Front:
Rear:
Not bad in my opinion.
I did replace them with the S&S tensioners while I was in there.
YRMV.
If you use the HD Screamin' Eagle cam plate upgrade kit, it's pretty orange, allows for the change over to hydraulic tensioners, and lets you use your current cams. The problem is... the sprockets between the old cams require a link chain, instead of the newer roller chains. So you'll have a roller chain on front of the cam plate (between cam sprocket & crank sprocket), but reuse your link chain between the cams on the back of the cam plate. Some believe the link chain can be part of the problem with fast wearing and/or disintegrating spring cam tensioner pads. Others believe it was only "certain" link chains (manufactured with burrs or sharp edges) that caused the excessive wear and/or once "polished" by the OEM tensioners, subsequent tensioner pads won't wear nearly as bad... .... If you don't want to switch cams, this would be an acceptable choice.
To do a worry free job of upgrading to hydraulic tensioners, you need to upgrade to the '07+ cam plate & oil pump. That will allow for roller chains on the back of the cam plate (between cams) and the front of the plate (between cam sprocket & crank sprocket). But to do this, you need to buy a conversion cam. The conversion cam fits the inner cam bearings of the pre '07 twin cams (or pre '06 dynas) and the newer hydraulic tensioner cam plates of the '07+ twin cams (or '06+ Dynas). To do this, you need a bunch of proprietary Harley parts....
Cam makers like Andrews and Woods used to offer kits to go with their conversion cams. These kits came with all the HD parts you needed, plus their cams, to do the conversion. I forgot the year, but the MoCo stopped selling bulk parts to other vendors/competitors. Since then, you will need to buy the cams from a cam vendor, but the HD parts from a Harley dealer. You could order many (if not all) the parts needed from some other manufacturer of custom cam plates, oil pumps, cam gears, etc.... but those are usually $$$$$$ compared to the factory HD parts. While I don't doubt they may be superior in performance and quality to the HD parts (and they are usually very pretty), IMHO they are overkill in a mild build, street bike...
I know Andrews used to provide a list of all parts needed to do an '07+ hydraulic cam plate conversion on their web site.
I believe it cost me about $700, from an online HD discount vendor, for all the parts to do a cam plate conversion on my '03 Heritage. That does not include the cost of the cams, and other things I replaced like lifters, inner cam bearings, and new pushrods....
Last edited by hattitude; Apr 7, 2019 at 03:02 PM.
Wondering if anybody can help me out? I got a 2004 Fatboy with the 88b motor my problem is I want to update the cam shoes to hydraulic. What I'm trying to find is a complete kit where he has every single thing that has to be replaced is is there such a thing? I seem to be able to only find the shoes the plate and the replacement oil pump. I was just hoping there was somewhere that the offered a complete boxed kit of every single thing you need from start to finish. Thank you
I have an '02 FB with lower miles and am getting ready to change my spring loaded tensioner to a hydraulic. I really wanted to do the full S&S but i just couldnt justify the $1900 cost of the kit. So I went with a little more tame SE kit and am having the following replaced: SE Cam plate with hydraulic tensioner, oil pump, SE 203 cam, new rods, etc. All-in the cost will be $2k done by my dealer. This will give me piece of mind and I wont be thinking about the spring tensioner going bad because its not IF but WHEN because they all eventually fail and if you don't catch the problem early it could do significant damage to the engine.
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Cam chain tensioners
