Care to elaborate more with bolt size, etc Red?

 

Forgot bolt size. Just bring the plug into lowes and try it in the little thread match things in the hardware section. Then just get like a 3/4" bolt, and a lock nut. The theory is to put pressure on the thing on the inside that gets loose, but allow it to tighten up itself like it should. The problem isnt that the cctl has been extended all the way, its that the tensioner thing in the inside pushes outwards sometimes.

So thread the nut all the way on the bolt, and then thread the bolt in where the cap screw was until it is finger tight. Back up a touch, if any at all, and then tighten the lock nut. If it rattles still, you might have to tighten it up a touch more. The only problem with this bolt being too tight is not allowing the cctl to expand like it should to put more pressure on the chain. Your not allowing it to spin the screw thing inside of it.


Yea, im horrible at explaining things. I think i should just draw a picture, or take a picture of the one i ripped apart.

 

So i did some googleing. Its called the gumbo trick i think.

I copy-pasta'd this, so it might not be exactly the same as what i did:

 

I can confirm this works and takes all of 10mins to do!

Many thanks Redzintimidator.

 

So you can convert the oem tensioner into an aftermarket manual one for a dollar or so. Sweet.

 

There is also a trick where you remove the small bolt from the rear of the tensioner, insert a flat blade screwdriver, make a few clockwise turns then remover the driver. This pulls back the plungernd re-releases it to correct pressure. Once that is done insert the new long bolt and nut as me above post.
I did this the other day after 500km on just the bolt method, made a slight difference so well worth doing if your sounds particularly bad...


Cheers.

 

[Cliff Notes: If you do the bolt trick, over tightening the bolt in the back can cause your CCT to not work properly and/or completely fail]

Sorry to bring back an old thread, but this is the first thread that pops up on google when searching for a CCT fix. I recently had a bad result from doing the bolt in the back of the CCT trick, and thought I should caution those that are considering this solution.

I did the bolt in the back of the CCT trick a while ago, and it stopped the noise for a couple thousand miles. The noise eventually came back, and I rode it that way until recently.

When I decided to do something about the noise again, my solution was to thread the bolt into the back of the CCT a little further. This eliminated the noise, and I went on my merry way. After some hard riding, I noticed that my bike sounded like it was running rough. It was almost like a v-twin. After riding some more, I noticed a terrible metallic noise at idle, and my bike would stall unless I kept giving it gas. I am very familiar with the standard CCT noise, and this was much worse. It was more like a loud knocking / ticking sound. It wasn't the BBs in a tin can noise. I thought for sure that the timing chain had jumped a tooth, or a valve was bouncing around in the engine. The odd thing was that the sound would go away when I revved the engine, and it still seemed to accelerate relatively smoothly.

The CCT was the likely suspect, so I removed it for inspection. I found that the piston was almost all of the way back in the CCT. When I removed the bolt that I had placed in the back of the CCT, the piston shot back out to the fully extended position. I realized that when I over tightened the bolt in the back, I actually restricted the freedom of the CCT to advance the piston. Not only that, but the retaining clip that holds the whole CCT assembly together was very close to coming off. I later made the retaining clip pop off by twisting the bolt in the back a little more, and the entire assembly feel apart in my hands.

Adding the bolt to the back of the CCT does not turn it into a manual tensioner. Adding too much pressure does not advance the piston, and in my case, it actually restricted the piston from advancing. The part that the bolt in the back is pressing against needs to be able to spin in place in order for the piston to move in and out. This is much more clear after looking at all of the disassembled pieces.

Luckily, replacing the stock CCT with a manual tensioner has solved the problem so far. I am hoping that the terrible noise I was hearing was just the timing chain thrashing around from not having any tension. I was very lucky that the timing chain never jumped a tooth (I checked to make sure). Hopefully, no other problems will pop up because of the time the engine spent running with no tension on the chain.

 

Son of a B! Super glad you posted this, I was jut fixing to do the "manual conversion" to my oem tensioner as my 3rd or 4th one is rattling again. Looks like its time for a dedicated manual one.

 

Dragging up old posts again, I spoke to my mechanic yesterday and he told me they can also be fixed but he said they have to be taken apart. He told me that he has done this on many different CCTs (honda, kawasaki, yamaha etc) and basically he said it needs to be taken apart and just replace the spring inside.

He is a very capable mechanic and I do trust him but I have already ordered a manual one

Has anyone ever heard of this before?

 

The manual one - will last FOREVER.


Why the OEMs started in with the spring tension ones is beyond me.

So you should check it every 5-6k miles.... Big deal