SV650.org - SV650 & Gladius 650 Forum

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graham

Be very very carefull if you intend to fiddle with them. The whole guts of the tensioner is only held in with a thin wire clip, so if you try and tighten it by turning anticlockwise it can pop out resulting in the whole lot disappearing into your engine.
If you do as Northwind suggests make sure you position the engine at TDC on each cylinder before backing the tensioner off.
Having said all that It's a waste of time.

Right, lets take this from the top…

1) The cam chain tensioner adjuster is designed to be operated in exactly this way- it is impossible to fit it (without seriously endangering the cam chain) without retracting it. The service manual required that it be backed out in exactly the way described, and held with a service tool which is designed to hold the cam chain tensioner adjuster fully retracted- exactly what we’re doing with the screwdriver, in fact. So you’re actually doing exactly what the adjuster body is designed to do, and it won’t “pop out”.

This actually means that retracting the cam chain adjusters is part of routine servicing- it’s necessary for changing valve shims if that becomes necessary.

2) There’s absolutely no merit to doing it at TDC. With the tensioner body removed, there is no risk of jumping time or having the chain fall from a sprocket unless there’s movement introduced from outside- ie you turn the engine over, push the bike in gear or move the cam chain manually. With the valve covers off and thecam towers removed you can observe this yourself- backing off and releasing the adjuster will not cause significant movement in the cam chain. Don’t take my word for it- take the covers off and watch what’s going on inside

In any case, you’ll not be checking the timing before you restart it anyway so even if, as he suggests, there’s a risk of jumping time, he doesn’t suggest any way of checking if this has happened before you restart…

3)Since it works, it’s evidently not a waste of time- it doesn’t always last for long, but on one occasion it lasted for 2000 miles until I changed my cams, and would probably have been good for longer. OTOH, the first timei did it, it lasted for about a week and the noise returned. It seems that repeating the procedure lengthens the period for which it helps.

I’d suspect that Graham’s fault may be different, and so wouldn’t be solved by this procedure, which has worked in a lot of bikes on the group here and on SV Rider (where it was checked out by the usual suspects who could carve an SV engine out of wood if they felt the urge)