Switching to gear drive, "thoughts"
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Road Captain
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 529
Likes: 0
From: Smoky Mountains
Switching to gear drive, "thoughts"
I am seriously considering biting the bullet and changing my ride to gear drive, especially after my friend lost an engine to the cam tensioners on the return trip from Sturgis. 
His Fatboy had 70,000 miles on it at the time, the tensioners had been changed twice in an effort to prevent this very thing from occuring.
He is now faced with a much larger expense than he would have had if he had just installed the gear set instead of playing around with this ridiculous design.
What would you do????
His Fatboy had 70,000 miles on it at the time, the tensioners had been changed twice in an effort to prevent this very thing from occuring.
He is now faced with a much larger expense than he would have had if he had just installed the gear set instead of playing around with this ridiculous design.
What would you do????
Banned
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 11,436
Likes: 13
I would do the most sensible thing and convert to gear drive. I did it with only 7000 mi.on my motor. While your in there, a good shop will change out inner cam bearings. Good time to install a nice cam, think about it.
Road Warrior
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,440
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From: Columbus,Indiana/ Arecibo,Puerto Rico
You didn't state what year your bike is? Mine 06, I did,but make sure the crank run out is in speck. Mine was less than .002 Changed the cams, oil pump and spring also. AN Alternative is to go with the 07 and later setup. All stock parts and less problems with tensioner shoes.
Road Warrior
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 1,423
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From: Southern California High Desert, here and there....
I would definitely change over to gear driven cams, and did. My motor grenaded when an inner cam bearing spun at just over 70K miles. Took that opportunity to make the change when the new motor was built. The cam chain tensioner shoes were worn badly by then. Even though the cam chain tensioner shoes had nothing to do with the cam bearing failure on my 2000 TC, I would still recommend you switch to gear driven cams to prevent it from being a problem at some point.
Cruiser
Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 168
Likes: 0
From: The Frozen North - Hastings Michigan
I changed to gear drives in both my Road King, and my wifes Heritage. Did this when we changed cams. Glad we did, no more chain tensioner worrys. Only drawback I've found is the motors sound like shovelheads now, what with the noise of the gears meshing ...
Tourer
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 360
Likes: 37
From: canada
+1 on the gears. The tensioners I had were pitted, not majorly, but enough @ 15K miles. Also, some might mention a whine from the gears. I don't notice it on my set up. In my case it only ended up being an additional $300. So, for me it was money worth spending.
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Road Captain
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 529
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From: Smoky Mountains
Fail to mention that my EG is an 06 with 10,000 on the clock.
Thanks for all the great information. For those who have gone with the gear set, did you use the stock cam plate??
Thanks for all the great information. For those who have gone with the gear set, did you use the stock cam plate??
Last edited by Airpump; Jan 24, 2009 at 08:19 PM.
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