G'day. I've been thinking about checking my cam chain tensioners for wear. While looking at replacement parts I came across the cam drive gears that eliminate the chains and tensioners.I have a standard 96 twin cam at stage 1 . Not looking for performance gains , its more about reliability . Ease of fitting also. I'm fairly handy on the spanners and would like to do the job myself. A search gives a lot of info. Interested in peoples experience with them.

Ian,, if you are handy with the spanners, remove the cam cover and check/inspect the cam tensioners ,, (the secondary tensioner,(behind cam plate), is a bit hard to see properly, you may have to remove the cam plate to inspect properly.... You dont say what year bike you have,, or mileage ,, the later models have changed from spring to hydraulic cam tensioners, (which were a big improvement) .. If you have a later model, that has hydraulic cam tensioners , they may be good , or if you are concerned with the wear , replace them .. If it is a model with the old spring cam tensioners , they can be replaced with the updated hydraulic cam tensioners, (a good upgrade if your in there) ... Fairly easy job,, cost effective ,, Your call .....

Back to Gear drive cams,, I dont have personal experience with these, no doubt they are a good product , but from what I've been told by guys that have them installed ,, you have to make sure the pinion shaft runout is within spec , other wise they can be noisy and cause excess wear ... Others here that have them, will chime in with their advice / experience on cam drive gears no doubt ....

Thanks fella's . Its a 10 model fatty with 103000klm. It's mainly the milage that's making me think I should have a look.Try to get to it this weekend. Are the timing chains a long life item? I don't see much about them , even in the service manual . I was thinking the gear drive might be good value if you had to replace chains and tensioners. But as said above the runout at this milage would probably be a concern. Best check first , all may be ok.

0.003 " run out max for gear drive , i fit them all the time not a fan of da chain cams are very close to crank it's not like its too far away,all  Harley's are geardrive stock  before 1999 chains are just for epa noise laws  

EPA hey

Thanks for the advice . Gives me a few things to think about and check.

Change inner cam bearings check tensioner shoes for wear replace if required and ride