It took me all of 1 hour with the motor out of the bike, so I'd guess it would be about 1.5 hrs. if you had the motor in bike. Clean the crap out of everything before you take engine things apart. Don't let little crunchy-munchies fall in there.

My chain appeared as such:

That's being held vertically, so yes, all the links are pretty much seized. I would guess that the pins and holes in the chain start to become oval shaped, because at a nearly straight angle (160 degrees or so) the links are free, and if you bend them too far either direction they start to bind. It's kinda like a slap-slap-slap noise. If it helps to imagine, it's what one would hear if one were to yank a kinked chain straight again about 50 times in one second.

 

thanks for the info i dont think mines quite that bad but it is makin some noise

 

assuming you're down to the motor accessible with the spark plug boots removed:

1. Pull the valve cover off (six 10mm bolts with rubber seal washers)
2. Check valve lash because it's dumb if you're in there and don't do it.
2. Pull the pulser cover off (many 8mm bolts)
3. Take the tensioner off, remembering which direction the gasket faces. It matters.
4. Take the cam chain splash panel off (3 10mm's)
5. Loosening in stages, take the two cam tower caps off, carefully releasing the cams and relaxing all the valves
6. tilt the cams carefully to remove the chain, and let it go down below...
7. rotate the motor clockwise (14mm bolt) such that the position of the pulser tabs allows you to slip the chain out between the pulser rotor and the engine case to avoid removing the rotor. You may have to take off the front cam chain slider. 12mm bolt.
8. Inspect chain guides and everything else for wear. Look at cam journals for anything funny.
9. Put it all back together and find another article about timing. It's exceedingly easy and I shan't explain it here. Don't overtighten cam tower caps.

 

did u guys go with the manual cam chain tensioner or the factory oem style

 

I used the stock fluid-pressure based tensioner. I see all sorts of people using the A.P.E.'s and whatnot, but I can't bring myself to it. I assume Honda knows best. It just messes with my mind converting a spring/fluid tensioned drive assembly to a fixed-reference drive system with no flex or ability to take up slack/give some up. In theory it shouldn't need to, but I think if a camera were placed such that you could see the chain in motion at 12,000 revs, some opinions would change...

Keep in mind that as RPM's increase, oil pressure raises slightly, putting more tension on the chain. I almost think there's a reason for this, but that's just me.

 

well i bought the oem from honda but i was told to go to the manual because theyre more reliable thanks for the input unfortunately im confused on wat to do

 

I'm keeping the auto Honda tensioner. I consider the risk of improperly manually tensioning such a vital engine component greater than the risk of mechaical failure of a stock part. I always trust a fairly decent design over my own tweak ability. Not that I'm an incapable mechanic, I just prefer less variables in my equations.

 

So I may have just been joking... I'm pretty sure that some of the Hydro-tensioners are pretty much just straight up bad from Honda, according to others at least. I haven't replaced mine and the stocker 'seems' good, but we'll see what I've got to work with when I get the motor back together with my new cam chain. I'm praying the ol' ticking won't be back... I shall report.

 

let me know a manual is only 50 bucks but i already bought the oem

 

Supposedly the tensioner is supposed to go bad around 60k. How many times in the life of your bike do you think you'll have to change it.

With a manual tensioner, you're supposed to check the tension at every oil change strictly based on hearing what kind of noise the cam chain is making, and tighten accoringly.