Many thanks to the SH Forum for the advice and guidance. killer 5280 (a local ATL guy that is an old fart like me and a great bar tender) came to my rescue. I have a 98 with 13k miles and pay the dealer to service it. I had no idea about the timing chain tensioner issue and was pretty pissed at Honda and my dealer for hiding the problem. I caught enough crap from The Forum for not having manual tensioners. My chain let go at low rpm and it did not sound bad. I finally got the head off this week and could not believe my eyes - no damage at all. I cannot freakin believe it. I guess the chain only skipped a tooth or two. Anybody else ever hear of such?

I have some questions if any of you can assist. How/where do I get the manual tensioners? I hate fairings and body panels and have seen some nice conversions with fork mounted light and guage panel. Anybody know of a kit or do any of you "artists" make drawings with details on how to mount a light and the guages?

 

APE manual cct's are a popular replacement. They are relatively easy to replace yourself as long as you take your time and double check everything while you do it. If you follow the procedure on the forum then it is hard to screw up.

 

If you are skilled enough to drill and tap, I can pm you instructions to make your own out of the stock housings, 2 carriage bolts, and 4 nuts. I've been running mine I made with no issues, as have other people. Just PM if you want to know...

And mine let go at about 3k and only skipped a tooth like yours, we are the lucky ones.

 

Id say that you are lucky, i have had two go on me, i didnt check that first time if the timing was out, just hand cranked it over when i fitted new OEM tensioner, the second time I checked when i was putting the APE's in.

I do have a PDF walk though that I used, it was from there forum some where, or it might have been off the VTR.org forum. It was verry helpfull and changed with my own hands.

Ill have a look see if i can find it.