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Disaster-->My cam-chain broke
- tommyboah
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The most obvious reason to me is the tension of the chain. I have felt unsure about the adjustment of the manual APE cam chain tensioner. I've heard and read that you are supposed to finger tighten it until and then back of one turn and it then be right. The problem is that this bad boy is so tightly stuck under the carbs that it can be a pain to adjust it without removing the carbs.
Here are some (not too good) photos of the current state of the APE cam tensioner. Can anyone see from this, if I have tightned it too much or too little?
.Tommyboy
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- 4TheKZ1000
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Those chains are super hard to break. Did you use a one piece chain or was a master-link used?
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- baldy110
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- PLUMMEN
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Still recovering,some days are better than others.
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- tommyboah
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The chain didn't break while I was adjusting the tensioner I guess the chain might have been making some noise, a little hard to tell as the engine is not exactly noiseless to begin with.baldy110 wrote: You cannot tighten it by hand enough to break the chain. Was the chain making noise prior to the break. As mentioned the cam chains are very strong.
I figure it would be easier to break a chain if it was to loose rather than too tight? If it was to tight wouldn't it simply wear through the rubber damper on tensioner?
The cam chain had only run about 300 miles as it was new when the engine was reassembled. Don't know if it is and endless chain or with a master link though, as I had a shop assemble the lower part of the engine. I will need to lock more closely at it. What I did see when disassembling the top last night was that the chain seemed to be physically broken, it was not a rivet that had simply fallen out.
I need to figure out why this happened so that I can prevent this from happening again.
.Tommyboy
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- PLUMMEN
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Still recovering,some days are better than others.
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- peter1958
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- peter1958
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- tommyboah
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Thanks Pete for sharing your photo. Mine sure seems a lot more loose than yours. I bet there must have been too much slack and this made it break? The weirdest thing is that this happened while on the kick stand at 1500rpms warming up at no load. Maybe it had already started to go and this was enough to make it break?peter1958 wrote:
I took a picture of my adjuster.
.Tommyboy
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- Jeff.Saunders
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I adjust my manual cam chain tensioners with the valve cover off. I want to ensure the cam chain is tensioned properly - and it's easy to do after adjusting the tensioner by turning the crank forwards and then reversing while watching the cam chain and cams. You can see slack very quickly if there is any.
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- peter1958
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- Dr. Gamma
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Does anyone even make a heavy-duty cam chain for those motors???
I never saw any listed to my memory
1972 H2 750 Cafe Racer built in 1974.
1976 KH400 Production Road Racer.
1979 Kz1000 MK. II Old AMA/WERA Superbike.
1986 RG500G 2 stroke terror.
1986 GSXR750RG The one with the clutch that rattles!
Up in the hills near Prescott, Az.
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