I have been reading this forum every day for the last 1½ year, and learned a lot of the good and bad things about being an owner of a F2. Mine is a 92 with 60.000 km. I have had it for 2 years and have done almost 12.000 on it already. It’s my fist bike and I love it.

A lot of threads have been on the CCT, and all swear to the manual CCT tension version. But it is still $50.

The other day, I took off the F2 standard CCT and too it apart. Unfortunately I did not take any photos. Maybe another day or if anyone want to try out the following they will get some “cheap” forum “points”… [8D].

Getting access is easy and is described many places her on the forum. Look that up yourselves

Taking apart the CCT is also easy, as a clip is holding the two pieces together. The flange part must hold downwards. The other part is the piston part which is spring loaded. Before removing the spring hold the two parts together between two fingers. Remove the spring and you can gently take the two parts apart.

I have read that some drag the spring to make it longer. That will remove the rattle noise for some time, but will very likely come back as the spring will find back to its original length. Dragging too much in the spring you will destroy it.

For obtaining more spring force I have instead stacked 2 hex nuts and a thin spacer on top. The spacer is for making a proper mechanical surface towards the spring end. The hex nut’s is for compressing the spring inside the CCT. The piston will then in default position have more tension onto the CCT chain tension device.

Put back the piston, and press the parts together and install the spring.

I installed the CCT and it was a horrible noise. But as the oil pressure was build up all my rattle noise was gone. I started by adding one hex nut, but that was not enough.

The nice thing about this is that the CCT is still spring loaded which is the original idea. Should be almost idiot proof if you go easy and not start to stack a lot of spacers or hex nuts.

On my second attempt (installing the second hex nut), I by mistake removed the spring inside the CCT. With this followed a small vent system with a very, very small spring and a ball. This will secure the oil not running back when going up and down in RPM. It was a bit tricky to get these parts in place again so stay alert to this.

I have now been running a few days with this modification, and it is a completely different machine. Very quick throttle response, and the gearshift is much better as the engine is not loosing power on the chain slag.

I hope someone can use this idea. Plese tell me your thoughts.

 

Worth doing if you have the marbles and don't have 50 bucks... otherwise, get a manual tensioner, I think.

I still need to get one myself...

 

It's good that you figured something out...but i honestly would have went with the manual one...50 bucks is much better insurance than nuts/and washers IMHO

 

It is not the $50 as much as the respect for the original technical design, and the risk for making the manual tensioner too tight. If you make it right you can not fail!!! There are many warnings on this which maybee keep some away for having a smooth engine again.

Technical curiosity is of cause also the main driver.

 

Did you stop to pay attention that a few sport bike companies actually put manual cct's on some of the newer bikes? Kinda makes you wonder why they got away from the so called "automatic" ones...and you can't go wrong with a manual cct if you just follow the simple instructions posted on this site. Kudos for finding what you did

 

No,I did not know that a manual tensioner was build onto new bikes. Ido see the bennefit in making a manual tensioner, and for most people with basic technical knowledge it is not a problem to install and adjust.
Ijust still like the fundemental idea that there is a spring load onto this tensioner.The spring will work as a damper on the vibrations a cam chain will create. I must thoug say that I haven't got any experience with the manual tensioner so if there is a difference or not I can not say.
Maybee someone can use my input for a new version of the manual tensioner, and my mission on this thread is fulfilled.
Anyway, your comments is appriciated.

 

I bought a manual CCT this week, (hopefully it comes in tommorow.) Ill let u guys know how things go.

 

I plan on having a shop install the CCTL in my '01 F4i (I know, I know, I could do it, but I dont have alot of free time and would rather not spend that time cursing at the bike for not allowing things to go smoothly )

I called the shop and they said they usually use the OEM CCTL. I dont care all that much so long as I can be assured that I get the best OEM CCTL I can. Ive read of differences between J22 and J23 tensioners...how do I go about assuring I get the most updated and longest lasting CCTL?

Should I refuse the OEM unit and have them install one from APE or is the OEM going to be okay? (It seems like 1/2 the site saysone thing and the other half, another...)

Thanks in advance!

 

Well, is your OEM CCT bad already? If it is and your bike is only 7 years old why would you want to put another OEM CCT on? Honestly it would take you 20 minutes tops to install the CCT yourself, much better than paying $80 or so for labor.

 

It is bad. Im actually just bought the bike for a good deal (mentioned this problem and the selling price was lowered to reflect the cost of the repair). Ive heard it most when revving the bike up to about 5.5k rpms and then letting the RPMs fall and it sounds like marbles in a can, but only momentarily.

The two bigger shops quoted me $200 + parts. A local smaller shop said $55 + parts. A local guy who just did his and who is an auto tech said he would be happy to do mine for $50 + parts.

The only reason the OEM looks appealing is because its a "set it and forget it" kinda deal...nothing to mess up with over-tightening, etc. However, its bound to fail again in under 10k miles.

The APE looks nice as it will last forever, but there is the chance of over-tightening.