Attn all VTR1000 riders
 

If you have not replaced your cam chain tensioners.

DO IT NOW.

Hell we even have a member here making them.

If you can't afford them think about how much a new topend rebuild is going to cost you.

I know everyone feels their own way about this, but personally I disagree. I know there have been some issues, but we have no idea how common this is. A lot seems to be mileage dependent and it seemed to be the earliest years were most affected. I think we see more here because of the nature of the sight - people come here that are having a problem - and perhaps early years or higher mileages from us diehards. but given the denominator of bikes sold its a pretty rare event likely. And if you do searches, from my recollection, I have heard equal number horror stories of the unprepared, including shops, installs going bad and creating a problem trying to prevent one.

I think maybe more sound and believable advice would be if you own a 2000 year SH ( I honestly think the change occured before this but can't recall - ron ayers lists a superceded part number but no reference to year - this was my recollection from my dealer when I rebuilt an engine), it makes sense to replace them, or if you have a later bike with particularly high mileage replace them next time you check valve clearances - and follow the sticky on how to do this without taking shortcuts!

i beat on mine without mercy.

it is a 2000 with about 20,000 on the clock.
i ride with guys with busa's and gixxer 1000's,they dont get away.
unless were on the interstates and then yeah topend gets me.

never a prob with the tensioners,but then again im not sloppy with the downshifts.

I don't get the whole problem with the design of this part anyway. Honda's have this issue, my Hayabusa (a '99) had its break while it was idling in front of my apartment back-in-the-day. They did a recall, installed a new style model, and those broke for a bunch of people too.
You'd think if this was an issue across brands like this, they would maybe design a better part? I know all those rebuilds can't be helping their bottom line any, thought the fact they don't redesign it makes me think its cheaper on a spreadsheet somewhere to leave it as is...

I don't get the "it hasn't happened to me yet so it must not be a big deal" especially when it is $85 for the parts from Truckinduc and a couple hour install on your part to prevent a rebuild.

There have been documented cases of CCT failur with as little as 8000 miles from new, and both the "new" and "old" bikes have it happen. Yes some people get many thousands of miles without issue. (heck my bike had over 55k on it before I got them changed out)

It's like being Schroedinger's cat and being able to remove the poison from you box but not bothering because the quantum decay has not yet happened.

its actually probably more like changing 1000 CCTs to prevent one catastrophic failure - that is a pretty low yield and in those other 999, factor in all those that after the fact never get maintained and it just doesn't make sense to make a blanket statement like change them all. Yes, you can do it, and if you do your own maintenance and are going to be good about maintaining them then by all means do it at your next valve check. but honda and others designed maintenance free items for a reason - they know the average rider.

good argument, but $85 seems like rather cheap insurance. no? If the cams were gear driven then you wouldn't be discussing it.

I'd say more like a 1/1 chance that it will eventually fail.. (may be a long eventuality, but it will fail before the universe dies out, lol)

My bike became a LOT quieter after I did the swap, and I feel I can trust the bike again. :D

Cliby
I posted this because in 2 days there were 2 posts that my bike is making funny noises and Im worried about it.

The CCT's failing is not a matter of performance degredation over time rather an all of a sudden gone and you now are stuck with a lot bigger bill than just the manual CCT's.

Well, one of those posts is probably mine, and I already have manual CCTs.

I guess someone would have to start an unbiased poll of riders who still have stock CCTs, vs those who have experienced a failure. Obviously, bikes that have the conversion pre-failure don't tell you anything. Problem is with most polls, the way the title is worded only attracts people with the particular problem.

I get it. I wasn't being argumentative, re-read my post. I just put some clarifications in there that make it more believable. And yes, a lot of harm actually can come from everyone trying this, again that is a point I was trying to make. Taken to extreme what you are saying is if you own a bike and it uses the spring tension automatic CCT, replace them. NOW. I was just trying to make that more credible.

That's why I'll be doing my CCTs very soon. Every time I ride, I feel they are going to 'let go' and leave me stranded 50 miles from home. Then, of course, the subsequent rebuild.....

I've been brainwashed by all your CCT propoganda!!

my biggest fear is someone swapping out and causing more damage themselves.
i have a manual and tools,if it goes ill fix it.

my hawk has about 25,000 on the o.e tensioners.i`m going to replace very soon,just for maintance.i also have a 1997 cbr600 with 40,000 miles on the o.e tensioner and the engine is still quite.i think the reason that you hear about so many failures on this forum is thats what people talk about on sites.they talk about the different problems that they have on their bikes.think about the hunderds of thousands of hondas on the road that never have a problem.i`ve been riding bikes about 40 years and average about 20,000 miles a year and have never had a major part failure that i didn`t cause myself.guess i`m overdue for something to break.[knock on wood].

I agree to replace the piece of crap stock CCT. My 98's rattle like a pig, i had Honda replace them in 2000 under a warranty recall (enough evidence there was a problem if an offfical recall). The new improved one's were not much better.

Sometime the chain slapped and rattled and sometimes it didn't. After sniping a former VTR owners APE cheap of off ebay i finally replace mine.

Now i have a quite timing chain / Valve train and i do not worry anymore about the poorly designed Factory CCT backing out and causing the chain to jump a tooth and destroy the top end or worse yet pitch me off the bike ant an opportune time causing major engine / Bike damage or worse death.

For those that say no need to change the stock CCT's, we will just have to agree to disagree, I put mine in and will not look back.

It is like insurance......

The pole could have a question pertaining to the manual CCT's now have a quite Valve Train and no chain slap noise.

Not trying to fan the flames... but the CCT's aren't necessarily designed solely to be "maintenance free" for the average rider. Very possibly engineered in there current state so that as they assemble the motors they can just plug them in and not have to "tune/adjust" a more labor intensive manual tensioner like the APE's. Think about having to adjust each tensioner on every motor produced... that's gonna cost money.

Personally... if the Honda CCT didn't unload/backout when (or if) the spring breaks and possibly damaging the motor, I wouldn't bitch too much or have swapped to the APEs. I'd chalk it up to just something else that's gonna happen just like the damn RR's that blow out (Which I'll assume we agree isn't an internet phenomenon). BUT this singular part can cause a nightmare of damage, and is worth thinking about doing, even for just piece of mind.

J.

I must be an exception to that rule.

And by chain slap, are you implying that all those bikes previous to the manual CCT install had failed tensioners? If they had failed tensioners, why were they still running? Or does the spring just get weak?

Just playing devil's advocate here. We all know how fast information spreads on the internet, whether it's the truth, or some half-truth, or complete misinformation. I think that's why it's important to preface anything you say that isn't first hand information.

18,000 on mine with the stockers on there; and no problems nock on wood. I will be ordering some soon though!

As for a cause, my favorite theory is running the engine at too low revs. The pulses are at a low enough frequency to be distinct and make the CCT move a bit each pulse. At higher revs, the pulses smooth out and the CCT doesn't have time to move at all. I have "spoken" to a few owners who have had them fail and they all said they usually just putt along in a high gear.

Of course if this correct, the easy fix is to rev that sucker. I never ride below 3000rpm and try to keep it above 3500 but sometimes this is tricky due to the low speed limits here in Oz.

Really it doesn't need to cost anything at all, i modded mine by fitting a "stopper" ,a few of us over here have done this modification,i found it very easy to do by following the instructions :D

3RD post from the top

click -http://www.vtr1000.org/phpBB3/viewto...=3179&start=90

You can see where the stopper would go ,between the plunger and the end of the worm threaded drive.

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/149/pict0289n.jpg

you just saved me $80 sir wise man, thank you

Bought my SH in August, 1997. Over 33,000 miles on it now and still has the OE CCT's. I still think there's a connection to CCT longevity and how the bike is used. Mine doesn't get drag raced, taken to track days, or stunted. My early '98 gets ridden in the fat mid range as soon as I clear my driveway- no trips to the rev limiter and then snapping the throttle shut. A lot of these bikes are being bought used- if the history of the bike and it's owner is unknown it can be a real roll of the dice so preventive maintenance may be prudent- but that can be said of any used bike.

:wtf2:
Ummm.....I have no idea what that cat thing is all about, but I get your point and agree.

Well, I have 20,000 on mine and I am getting a pair from Trucker and will be having a shop install them. It's cheap insurance rather than risking over $1000 to rebuild.

I think this site gives a good feel for just how often the CCT's fail. We all have Hawks, and there aren't all that many of us on here. We have had several members that have had failures. I don't like those odds.

cct modification
 

Youre welcome :)

its easy if you follow the instructions ,and above all FREE ,...all you need is an 8mm bolt which gets cut into 2 sections,one for each cct.

The idea of this mod is that the ccts are still running spring loaded as honda intended ,and if the spring was to break, it would be audible ,but the plunger cannot reduce far enough to let the cam chain slip ,and therefore do damage .

One chap even modified his new standard Honda cct's .

One of the chaps on our forum with far more experience than me has done a SERIOUS AMOUNT OF HOURS testing this method :shock:,finding out which way each cct plunger moves when actually riding the bike at different revs :eek: ,someone i think even removed the cct spring and ran the bike, just to make sure no damage would occur .

Im happy with this method anyway ...you make yer choices.......

Classic quantum mechanics illustration.. I honestly thought it was well known enough that people would get it.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger's_cat

Cat is alive or dead based on a random event = Engine is alive or dead based on a random failure of CCTs.

The latest version of the CCT looks like it will hold up better than the previous version. The end of the tensioner is now rubber. I imagine that will translate into a lot less abrupt shock to the "teeth" on the tensioner itself, reducing failures. The CCT's that came out of my 2005 still had the steel end on them, so I'm not quite sure when they came out with this new & improved version.



OLD - - - - - - - - - NEW

Those are for a VFR, not a VTR..

Type that part # 14520-mcw-003 in here: http://fiche.ronayers.com/Index.cfm/Module/WhereUsed