When you’re in love with old motorcycles, there’s always something to be done. First, finding the object of your affection; then going to pick them up and bringing them home (hopefully for a good price), going through them after you get them home and triaging what needs to be done – squirting them down with PB Blaster or Kroil, seeing what’s broken or cut or what needs to be replaced – and then that first power wash that gives you a hint of what lies under the grime and a promise of what it could be after you get everything sorted.

I think that vision of ‘what could be’ is kind of what drives me to collect these things, not to mention that classic motorcycles are getting fewer and fewer as the years go by. But when you get one, the one you wanted, it’s amazing how much you learn about them even when you think any needed repairs will be rather simple, especially when a repair you think will only take about, oh, an hour or two, turns into a big rabbit hole that winds up in some cases taking days.

Lemme preach on it! Last month I wrote about replacing the starter clutch in my 1974 Honda CB550K, seen here looking very pretty in my driveway this past summer when I thought I was done rebuilding her…

So of course I tried to start her up, and was dismayed to hear a Very Scary Noise coming from inside the engine. I did some digging and discovered the starter clutch was bad. I replaced said starter clutch (see last month’s Virginia Rider ‘Idle Hands’ column) and was thrilled to hear the Very Scary Noise had gone away! Yay!

Alas, it was Not to Be. (This is the part where I have to keep repeating ‘I love old bikes I love old bikes I love old bikes…’).

The starter clutch was fine but NOW – even after setting my valve clearances and electronic ignition and balancing my carbs – there was another if not Very Scary Noise, a noise nonetheless that shouldn’t be there; it sounded a lot like cam chain whirr - kind of like a playing card in bicycle spokes but with a deeper undertone.

The garage gods were throwing me another bone to chew, but at least in this case I was more ‘concerned’ than ‘alarmed’, if that gives you any indication of the severity of the VSN (Very Scary Noise). I even made a video of it, if you’re interested.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Oo4NLTQT3Jo

So of course, did some digging, and discovered much to my angst that the problem was now with the cam chain tensioner! IN the engine! GAAAHHH!! Dammit I was JUST in there!

In simple terms, the cam chain in a motorcycle comes up from a gear deep in the engine and wraps around the cam shaft sprocket, which in turn operates the cam shaft, which rotates and operates the valves and makes the motorcycle move...yes, yes, yes, there’s also the role the primary chain plays too - the primary chain is that big ‘ol gnarly-looking chain to the left of the starter clutch in the picture below – but I said ‘in simple terms’.

The cam chain tensioner looks kind of like the ‘bow’ in a ‘bow & arrow’ and is supposed to seat in a little hole at the bottom of the engine and puts tension on the cam chain to help keep it tensioned (duh!) and running smoothly. When I rebuilt the engine, ‘Mr. Fast&Loose’ here (me) neglected to make sure that the tensioner was in it’s proper place, and now my chickens had come home to roost.

Oh yeah…?? Well it’s time to fry some chicken! Here’s a Before pic..

This view is looking UP through the bottom of the engine towards the front – that circle is the end of the misplaced tensioner, which should be sitting in that flat part behind it; you can see the freshly replaced starter clutch above it.

So, Yeahhhh...I paid homage to the garage gods with several words that are not fit to print here, because in order to fix this, I had to take apart the WHOLE top end – AGAIN! On the ‘plus’ side, though, it DID teach me a lesson about the placement of the cam chain tensioner, so...silver lining??

It’s not that bad of a job; more of a PITA than anything else, really... I had to take off the cables, take off the head and screw up my valve clearances - AGAIN! Take off the manifold clamps, remove the carbs – oh, it sucked. The clamps especially, with all those little screws...But of course it was not going to fix itself, so that only left li’l ‘ole ME to do it.

...but I got it!

Tensioner back in it’s place – see how it fits behind that flat part there…?