hey guys my bike has 30k on my 2000 night train and the previous owner had a SE cam installed around 20k miles. should i be looking at my cam tensioners or is that something is commonly done with the cam upgrade? I only ask because my dad is currently having his replaced and upgraded to the hydraulic setup at the dealer and theyre charging him almost $1500! granted he got 53k out of his old ones on his 01 heritage.

 

I would try to track down the previous owner and ask if they were changed...if they were and you only have 10k miles i would leave them alone for another 10-15k miles...

 

If all you have is 10,000 on them, you shouldn't have anything to worry about. Of course, if curiosity is killing you, all it'll cost you to look is a gasket and 1/2 a qt. of oil.

 

looked at mine back last month because I bought it used...after putting 15000 on it,,i just had to check...good thing I did...shoes were not that bad, but found a couple of bad lifters, SE 257cams were eat up from the lifters. Check the cam plate and it was starting to groove along with the oil pump...Since I was there, went ahead and put in S&S 570 Ezstart cams, gear drive, lifters and new plate and oil pump. Got less that 1300 in it with buying cam needle bearing removal/installer tool...

 

If the Org owner was doing it on the cheap, he may have only done the cams and not the tennsioners.
At 20K the org tennsioners may have been still OK.

Several ways to find out what was done, If it was a dealer and their near U or even if not U could call them to find out.. If they'll look in there records..


Also if Ur dad is having cams and Hyd tennsioners, $1500 isn't out of line..

Just make sure they install the new type chains on both inner and outer. The SE kit used to have only the new roller chain on the outer tennsioner and members in here still were reporting the inner wear on the new set up was just the same as the old set-up because the SE kit still used the old type chain on the inner.




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Umm... I'm not aware that the inner chain on the SE kit has changed to a roller chain... do you have a part number?

 

I opened up the box that the originial owner gave me and this is what was in there. I'm guessing that means the tensioners were replaced? The dealership thats doing my dads talked him into doing what they called an "upgrade" and went with hydraulic tensiors and adjustable pushrods. Is there anyway for me to tell if thats what they did with mine by just taking off the cam cover and peaking inside? Or is that something thats not going to be easily noticed?

 

Yup, the stock plate is silver, the SE Hydraulic plate is bright orange. You will be able to tell right away. But, if the previous owner kept the stock cams, tensioners, and bearings I'd bet he would've kept the stock plate/oil pump assembly too if he'd changed them out. Not to get too far into it, but he might not have changed the inner bearings either.

 

He could have done the main thing you should be concerned about and that is to change the inner cam bearings but you can't tell that without removing the pushrods, suspending the lifters with magnets, and pulling the cam support plate, even if it is an SE support plate.

With all of the discussions concerning this issue when I did mine I wanted to try to solve everything involved but I failed to get rid of the inner cam chain per HD's design and I think that is the primary issue with the tensioners... plus heat. My rear inner cam bearing journal was pitted at 55k and my tensioner shoes were starting to go south and probably had 10k max left on them. My bad cam would have probably lasted another 10k also.

With the experience that I have now, I would have replaced the cams (with a better performing one of course) replaced the inner bearings, and installed adjustable push rods. I would have made the tensioners a normal part of the maintenance cycle (which HD failed to do except in one obscure statement in the shop manual). THAT would have been the smartest solution in my opinion. I'm not riding a high performance bike and the extra pressure oil pump, etc. wasn't worth the bang for the buck. My approach was that I was going to fix anything and everything and I didn't do it (the inner cam chain got overlooked because I bought HD parts) and so I was an idiot listening to a bunch of internet myths, suppositions, and hype to overbuy for my real purpose.

To summarize, my opinion is to replace the inner cam bearings to torrington bearings and convert to adjustable push rods so that you turn the tensioners into a simple maintenance issue. And... upgrade the cam if you want to. BTW, I don't see anything wrong with those cams or those tensioners beyond normal wear. I'm guessing since those parts, including the bearing, were there the cam was upgraded and the shoes were replaced and that was it. It is likely that the push rod tubes are different than stock because it makes it easier to adjust the push rods using a different design... but that's not a guarantee. You can remove the upper cover retainer sleeve and slide the tube up and you will be able to see if the push rod is adjustable. That will save you a lot of time and effort in opening up the cam case. IF you have adjustable push rods, I wouldn't do anything but button it back up and ride until you have about 35k on the bike assuming that you do regular maintenance. I also recommend syn3 oil instead of standard oil (I did get at least 55k).

C#

 

LB...

Read through this link below, it talks about what other have experienced with the SE Hyd kit. and explains what I was talking about above..


https://www.hdforums.com/forum/softa...arts-list.html


also a lot more reading here..
https://www.google.com/search?source...w=1494&bih=775




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