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rattle after synthetic oil change

I figured out my problem. Bad ball bearings on the front of my cams. Luckily I pulled the cam before damage was done. I have the year bike that Harley used low quality ball bearings on the front side of the cams (1999, my bike is listed as 2000, but engine was made in 1999). Harley later, 2000, installed roller bearings in the front cam/cam plates to fix the problem. I walked in a motor cycle shop with my cams still in the cam plate and the mechanic said, "I've fix 500 of these!. You have to be the last one with those bearing!"

If I had known to search for 1999 cam bearing problem instead of year 2000, I would have solved this mystery long time ago. So, I ordered the 26N Andrews cam kit that includes the gear driven cam sprockets. No chain tensioners or chains anymore.

The thread that helped me was by glider, thanks glider!

I can't post the link to gliders thread, but search for cam bearing problem


LUCKY IT DIDN"T BLOW!!!

WHILE YOU ARE THERE.......

You might want to do another NEEDED job in THAT engine WHILE YOU ARE THERE....

MY 2000 dyna (same as yours 1999 early) I caught mine before any BEARING problems....converted over to GEAR DRIVE because of CHIPS off tensioners.... foaming oil and crank running in TOO MUCH OIL (not returning fast enough out of sump)

THIS (your) oil pump was not the best designed and had a lot of problems (sumping oil) not getting enough oil removed in large enough quanities causing foaming of oil and dumping out the air cleaner .....

the OIL PUMP SHOULD be replaced to a newer style ... and cam support plate upgrade .... HD has a GOOD replacement NOW

in the 06 dyna and 96" 07's on up,,, they change to aBIGGER n BETTER pump - cam support plate along with a new chain and tensioner system....

MY OPINION is poor engineering on the earler oil pump.......
I went with feuling $$$ oil pump and delkron $$$ support plate...GLAD I DID!!!!!

I totally rebuilt MY motor using above pump and plate with 570 SS gear drive cams, 10.25/1 scrm'n eagle big bore pistons and jugs, manley valves n springs, flowed heads... 42 mikuni , larger intake manifold, a race tuner: scrm'n eagle programable... 6 speed gears into tranny and put on a respectable 117,000 on bike (still looks new) and 48,000 mi. on the engine rebuild....

(I use all REDLINE synthetics)
20/50 in engine..MTL in primary ...SHOCKPROOF HEAVY in tranny...

RAN great... I finally traded for a NEW FLHR
I will NOT change a thing on my 09 FLHR cause of it's BETTER DESIGN!

ON YOURS,I would at least do the OIL PUMP.... harley has a pump that should of been USED in the first place (larger) and would do good on your 2000 twin cam...

On the problem with the cam bearings...(yours going out)

HARLEY WOULD OF DONE THE FIX ALL FOR FREE..... doesn't matter WHO owned the bike nor how many miles or times it was bought n sold....

BELIEVE ME I KNOW THIS TO BE THE CASE..... They had MANY people MAD about HD saying"""" we will only fix it when it is a problem"""" ....Your's finally became a PROBLEM and could of been fixed for free......

YOU COULD OF taken it to a dealer for the FREE repair(them tearing it down)..... but you would have it JUST STOCK,, with the larger ROLLER bearing instead of the ball style and the INNER cam bearings stock which should be CHANGED also....... (to "full" style rollers)


Glad I went to the gear drive on that model year... YOU should have NO problem like the NEWER bikes do with excessive crank run-out...The cranks were BETTER in the early twin cams.... SAID GLIDER TO ME LONG AGO......

signed....BUBBIE
 
Do yourself a favor... next time your out at a bike show, look closely at the bikes there. Paying attention to the seam between the engine & the transmission, if you spot a bike with the seam outlined by a gray.. almost graphite looking stain. Ask the owner if he/she uses synthetic oil. Also look at other engine gaskets.
Not many are picking up on this, but I'm predicting that in the future it is going to be recognized as one of the trade-offs to using synthetics in an air cooled engine. Sure they lower your temp (a tiny bit) and all kinds of claims are being made of it lengthening the engines life. But hey... not so fast! Noise in an engine is made by parts colliding... when that occurs you are certain to get wear!!!!
Its been my finding, over & over again, that lots have noticed way more noise in their engines when they switch to sync, just as you described! Although you found it was a cam bearing... don't you find it odd that it wasn't detectable until you went to the sync oil. The thing is... even though the weights are the same, dino vs sync, the synthetic... in its own claims, is made up of much smaller molecules (benefit being it gets into places that ordinary oils don't, do you see where I am going with this! Dino oils have larger molecules which helps fill those gaps inside your engine, an engine that was designed for less than a thou. of clearance using dino oils. Bottom line, I've switched a number of bikes back to dino oil, for friends & customers alike and once you've done that... the noise subsides. Note: give it a couple of oil changes to get rid of all the sync and save some $$ while your at it! As long as you change the filter... you can go back and forth between the two, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
As I said... check it out for yourself! Remember, do regular oil changes with the old fossil oil and enjoy the sound of your exhaust, without the ticking distractions in your engine!
PS
If heat is an issue, look at getting an oil cooler or a Baker +1 oil pan! The oil pan being the better way to go...
 
Sidecar Cycles, I believe what you are saying. Plus, given that slightly annoying wine with the gear driven cam kit, I'll be switching back to regular oil. I missed on replacing the oil pump suggested by Bubbie. Very belated response on my part, but nevertheless thanks. And... she's still running like new with the gear cam upgrade.
 
I figured out my problem. Bad ball bearings on the front of my cams. Luckily I pulled the cam before damage was done. I have the year bike that Harley used low quality ball bearings on the front side of the cams (1999, my bike is listed as 2000, but engine was made in 1999). Harley later, 2000, installed roller bearings in the front cam/cam plates to fix the problem. I walked in a motor cycle shop with my cams still in the cam plate and the mechanic said, "I've fix 500 of these!. You have to be the last one with those bearing!"

If I had known to search for 1999 cam bearing problem instead of year 2000, I would have solved this mystery long time ago. So, I ordered the 26N Andrews cam kit that includes the gear driven cam sprockets. No chain tensioners or chains anymore.

The thread that helped me was by glider, thanks glider!

I can't post the link to gliders thread, but search for cam bearing problem
I had the same problem with the noise when I changed to Synthetic Oil and took it to my mechanic and he said it was caused by the synthetic oil being too slick and causing the roller bearings to slide instead of roll. So he took the synthetic oil out and replaced it with another kind of oil and that took care of it. Ran great without that noise. I couldn't believe it either.
 
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