Twin Cam Problems

I have been servicing a customers 03 bagger since new it is a injected bike stock other than pipes, intake and power commander with about 38,000 miles. The owner rides alot and takes good care of his bike the last few services he has complained about mileage getting bad and the bike is getting hard to start sometimes. We did the usual checks but nothing showed itself, the last time he was in I asked him if he had been playing with the commander settings he said no. So we reset the timing settings to check mileage and starting problems. A few days later he came in with the results things were better but still not starting normally, this is the first time that I had this type problem show up on a injected bike so for some reason I was slow at putting the information together. But what was behind this was the tensioners were worn almost completely out and the bearings a close second the timing was off enough because of the worn parts the motor no longer ran right. I have had this happen on carb bikes before but this is the first injected bike so if you are seeing any problems like this you might take a look at the cams and related parts. We put geared cams back in and all the old problems are gone, just something to think about. Dutch

I'm thinking alright. I'm thinking it's a good thing I kept my ol' EVO.

Why is it that everyone knows about the Twin Cam problem but HD doesn’t make a fix? I remember when the early EVO’s came out there were problems but HD made improvements and fixes. What’s up with the TC’s? OR, are there few bikes with 30,000 plus miles? (i.e. Hanger Queens).

So are a lot of other folks having problems. We sell a lot of Feuling oil pumps and lifters along with S&S gear sets and Delkron cam plates. Lately I have been hearing of a lot of customers with inner bearing problems. H-D will only fix the problem when enough people get fed up and either sue them or walk away and buy another brand. If I were to have abused my 2KRK the way I have stock, it would have scattered all over th place at least once.

First in Tucson with the cam bearing problem. (Know this because a good friend was service manager at the time and he literally had just received the TSB).
I was told I was the first in Tucson with the oil pump problem (according to H-D) but I doubt it.

Since installing the S&S gear drive, Andrews cams, Delkron cam plate and Feuling oil pump and lifters along with Torrington bearings it has been bullet proof. H-D should at least fix these issues at the factory level.

I could have bought a TC88A /FLH based FR frame for the project FXR-SFFF bike but, since I fully intend on abusing it quite often I went with the tried and true EVO based technology. The tranny is a late FLH type with the oil pan so it frees up the entire oil bag area for electronics.

Almost done with mock up so will slide some images up soon.

Anti Chopper is beginning to have a heartbeat.

Thanks for the tech tip Dutch. Thats good info to have. I switched to gear drive Andrews last winter (Thanks for the great deal CD ) ...so I'm not worrying; but my father in law and a buddy are still running SE cams with chains.