Coastie said:
KTM mechanic never heard of it ????
He's either telling porkies or he's not real good. Sound like a pretty widespread problem to me.
The Dirt tricks tensioner looks like a good fix but dunno how that would affect warranty.
Not that you should have to use aftermarket solutions to a factory problem anyway.
If this problems been around for a year why the hell would they persist with using the same POS.
Perhaps KTM should get in touch with Dirt tricks.
My good KTM mechanic rang me up the other day and started the conversation by saying "Hey it's your KTM Mechanic that's not real good" after which we both burst into a good long laugh. Coastie, he also found your insuation that he would hide, read lie, about a known problem that KTM would be having amusing. He invited me over to the shop to show me what he knew about the hydraulic cam chain tensioner.
First this design has been around for some time on the KTM model line, in fact the same hydraulic tensioner is on models from the 250 SXF to the LC8 990 adventure. This same design is also found on other brands and models of bikes, sorry can't remember them at the moment.
On the KTM bikes with this tensioner, when the valves are adjusted, it is necessary to remove the cam. And since the cam is coming out the tensioner has to be removed. There is a very detailed 3 step procedure for resetting the cam chain tensioner of this type before re assembly. Apparently there are a couple of washers inside that perform as a sort of lock to keep the tensioner taught for lack of a better way of putting it, and this set up procedure in the KTM shop manual get's things set up right.
My mechanic friend did have one experience with a tensioner not working correctly after he had pulled it out to adjust valves on a bike. He simply removed the tensioner, did the set procedure again and it worked perfectly. Further, they have not had this problem come into their shop--ever, that includes 250's, 450's, 530's, 950's or 990's.
He also went on to tell me that at the KTM mechanics school, they, the KTM techs, were adamant about checking the oil pressure at the galley plug on the front of the motor, on the left side of the motor. There is a small torx bit oil galley plug there where one is to check the oil pressure.
Also, it is my uderstanding that the tensioner cannot be dis assembled.
I was not able to get a copy of the page out of the KTM shop manual, however, if those of you who are having problems can get a copy yourself and just try resetting the tensioner as mentioned in the book to see if that alleviates your problem.
Dustbite stated in his post:
" Both my bikes have now done close to a 100 hours/ 4000km and the problem didn't return. Still use the same tensioners, even use the same o-rings!
After the problem occured I dismantled, cleaned and put back together".
Midwest had this to say in his post: "This slight rattle is due to the adjuster ratchet in between teeth. As the chain gets slightly longer it will then go away. We have had no problems with this system, though if you don't change oil regularly it might affect the performance of the adjuster. There is a solution and it's not fitting a manual adjuster. All you have to do is undue the 21mm nut on top of the adjuster until you here a click this is the ratchet adjusting to the next tension. Then re-tighten the nut to 30Nm or 22.1 lb.ft. Caution this is the 21mm nut which is the second one on the cam chain adjuster stack".
I am not saying it doesn't happen, and Gazza's report definitely lends credence that the tesnioners, at least in some cases are bad. However it cannot be ignored that there are a lot of KTM's out there using this type of tensioner without any problems.
What's up over at KTM talk about this subject? Someone said recently that there was more 09 Berg reports there than there were here. Anyone of them mention this problem?