Evening.
Captain Cam Chain Tensioner killer here.
Thought I'd just fill in some gaps to help people decide what to do. Bikes a 51 reg registered in Oct 2010. First one went at 25k in August 2010 so nearly 9 years old give or take manufacture date. Could be age related then? Got a replacement head which was apparently quite high mileage ( 80k plus ) That one went on 9th May this year. First time I was doing about 30/35 mph, second time bike was warming up on the drive. Got a replacement engine on Friday, and the fist thing I've done to it is put a manual cam chain tensioner on it. This is mainly because I now have no faith in the standard one, which in my opinion has a design flaw in that if the spring fails, there is no warning or fail safe, and its instant engine death.
I'm not saying that this is going to happen to anyone else ( twice FFS! ) but now I know it wont happen to me again, and I'm happy with that. I've not heard of it happening to any other Gen 1, but I have heard a rumour of it happening on early R1's, but that's not verified.
Still, there you go. I'm a bit older, a bit wiser, 500 quid out of pocket and nearly 3 months bikeless. In that weather we've just had. Talk about salt in the wound