big_ern_77
New Member
Just thought I would share my experience here since I've been worrying about the noise my recently purchased '04 Heritage has been making. The noise is kind of a random clatter in the engine. Not sure if clatter is the right word but definitely worse than a tick. I could have swore the noise was coming from the front rocker box and the local harley dealer said it was probably the cam chain tensioners. I never believed it was that because in addition to the noise, the bike seemed to run as if the timing was off and the exhaust pipe from the front cylinder had a dominant pulse of air coming from it as if the valves weren't opening and closing correctly. I think the dealer just wanted $700 to do the tensioners. Anyway I tore the rocker boxes and heads off cause I had an oil leak there anyway and I wanted to see the rockers. What did I find there? Nothing. Well, since I had it that far apart I pulled the pushrods out, broke down the tubes, removed the lifters, and pulled the cam cover. Figured I'd check the tensioners that the dealer thought it was. They looked good, average wear for 19K miles. The funny thing was that as soon as I pulled the cam plate out, the front cam cocked off to the side from the tension on the chain. I looked at it a bit and see that the front cam's outer bearing is absolutely destroyed! The front cam had been flopping around on the outer end because of that bearing enough that it scored the (EDIT) out of the inner end of the cam. So now I'm looking at new cams and bearings when everything I had found on the internet pointed at the tensioners. Nothing beats just tearing into it to find the problem.
Please read this...
Please read this...
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