K&L cam chain tool

Bought a K&L cam chain tool from Jeff the other day with every intention to replace my cam chain. Sat down on this site to search the archives for hints on use of the tool but came up empty. There are threads discussing the use or folks just say 'use it' but no instructions. It is not intuitively obvious to me how the device works. Two ratchet driven cutting/joining surfaces (one with a solid pin and the other with an embedded pin on a spring). Can someone explain to me the 'how to's'? Thanks.

Mike,
I had the same issue. I'd rate the tool as purpose built for something, but not the job at hand. Its an expensive toy that sort of works.

The side with the spring loaded pin is for putting the master link on and the side with the hole in it is for pushing a link out of the chain.

The pin in the tool isn't long enough to push the pin in the cam chain all the way through. What I ended up doing was pushing the pin out a ways, dremeling the end of the pin down a bit, then pushing the pin back out the other way. You have to keep moving cam chain link plates out of the way. I ended up using a pair of pliers to pull the pin all the way through the link.

In my opinion, that (the pin not being long enough) just plain sucks. As does the lack of directions. I'll be looking to the motion pro tool if I ever need to do something like this again.

Just my 0.02

matt

The tool isn't supposed to push the pin all the way through the chain, it just needs to push it through the first side plate (about 1/8") - then you repeat with the pin on the same side plate and the link comes apart and pulls out.

The tool should come with instructions - I have asked K&L for instructions several times, but so far none have been included in the packaging.