If they changed to gear drives, you are safe then, if not , it still pertains to you. If you check your invoice, you would know what was done for sure

 

Cam chain tensioners are a wear item. Check them at 40,000 to 50,000 miles. I check mine this weekend, 38,400 miles on my 05 Road King. 0.05 wear on the secondary and even less on the primary. Harley recommends replacement at 0.09 or half the thickness. The cam chain tension 'crisis' is the most overblown subject on the forums. Too bad so many people have done needless upgrades to noisy cam gears just because of paranoia.

 

The tensioners on my '05 RK needed replacing at 21K miles.

CN

 

The trouble is that no where in the owner's manual does HD let the owner know that the tensioners are wear items nor does the manual state a mileage at which they need to be checked. Sure, the service manual has a pic that shows acceptable and not acceptable wear of the tensioners, but in reality the service manual is meant to be a product used by the service department, not the average owner. Lots of owners don't buy service manuals and quite a few that do likely don't study them like a bible. I know I had my manual for a few years before I ever saw that tensioner wear picture.

The cam chain tensioner problem may or may not be overblown. To a guy that has had a motor ruined by tensioner failures, I'm sure it's not overblown.

Noisy gears? More are quiet than noisy. Mine barely whine. I like the whine.

 

"The cam chain tension 'crisis' is the most overblown subject on the forums. Too bad so many people have done needless upgrades to noisy cam gears just because of paranoia."


Hmmmm. I don't think I characterised the cam tensioner issue as a 'crisis', however I have read many instances of replacement required anywhere from 10K miles to 25K miles as well as catstrophic failures with no warning. I just felt it was prudent since I was buying a bike with 20K miles on it to change them out in order to have one less maintenance issue to deal with, I also got a few more HP out of the deal in the process, so that was a plus and in my case not a 'needless upgrade(s)'. As far as noise is concerned, how the hell can you guys hear anything over the normal engine sounds and exhaust signature. Harleys are noisy.

ScooterJammer

 

I replaced mine at 51K and they should have been replaced before that. I was lucky in that all that had to be replaced with the tensioners was one of the chains. This problem is not overblown. It is something that owners need to be aware of and checked periodicaly. I am not a big fan of $800-1200 gear drive sets when the shoes are about 70 bucks plus labor if you can't do it yourself. Of course I haven't checked mine again...yet.[&:]

 

I have been checking into this as well. I also have and 01 Road King. First, I went to my go to guy. He has owned Harley's for as long as he has been alive and he is older than me (I'm 61). He does all of his own work and looked at me like I had 7 heads when I mentioned cam tensioners. According to him there is no issue with the cam tensioners, he has never heard of one going out and he virtually lives at the Harley dealers service dept. visiting with his mechanic fiends there. He has 70K on his Harley and showing no wear. Next I went to my local Harley dealer. In this case the service manager started smiling at me and went to the back to bring out one he was working on. The front shoe was completely chewed up and the rear one was gone. However, he pointed out that this was caused by hard riding and not performing scheduled maintenance. He also said that a normal checking period might be 40K miles. When I explained that I have 30K on mine and know the individual that I purchase from (purchased with 18K on it), and that he did all the maintenance, and that I run synthetic oil and change it religiously at every 3K, he told me that he doubted that I would see any wear at all, but could check if I wanted to by simply pulling the cover and looking. I'm lost on whether this is a real issue or not. Of course if you have experienced the problem it is a real issue, I'm not questioning that. I am wondering how prevalent it is however. Since I can't get two people to agree on this I will probably pull the cover and take a look and then decide.

 

You have the same engine as I do. My tensioers went at 81,000 miles ( pretty good mileage there,) and I went to gear drives at that time.

Your tensioners are no different that any other 1999 to 2006 model. ( Except 2006 Dynas.)

 

Had my cam chain tensioner shoes blow out on me after having mine a week. It was supposedly gone over with a fine tooth comb before I got it. I have my doubts. It was an exapensive fix not to mention a huge pain in the *** breaking down an hour from home. Port Washington Wisconsin is not the place to be stranded. The dealer replaced the shoes with hydraulic one. Said it should last for some time now. I guess we will see.

 

2000 FLHT 30 k checked last year by HD dealer 10 percent gone-run a Hayden M6 also - still good to go