OK, we all had some sort of cam chain failure story, I have one as well. You guys are going to laugh at the bike and then you are going to laugh at my questions. After all the jokes and insults though, maybe there will be some good information.
In 2005 I decided I HAD to get back on a bike after several years being too broke to afford one. I bought a brand new '05 Suzuki 750 Katana. I confess that I loved the look of it, the mechanical simplicity of the air cooled, detuned, vintage GSXR engine really appealed to me. My parents gave me a set of soft saddle bags for Christmas and I was Sport Touring! Laugh if you will about the Katana. I could not even dream of affording an FJR or ST1300. I did dream though and all the magazines were reporting the "New and Improved FJR for 2006", but that is another story.
I was determined to get as much good out of this cheap bike as I could and I did the best I could with it. I bought my oil and filter from the dealer. I paid over $10 a quart for Royal Purple Synthetic Motorcycle oil. Toward the end, I was paying them $11.50 a quart. This way the dealer had all my maintenance records. At about 7500 miles I brought it in for a new set of (Oh Boy!) Pilot Roads. When I picked it up they told me my cam chain was rattling. Hell, everything on that bike rattled, the synthetic oil just made it louder. I rode it home, thought about it, researched it, saved my money...About 8400 miles I brought it back for them to install the new CCT. I was told that the cam chain had already stretched too far, the chain had to be replaced. The chain is in the
middle between cylinders 2 & 3. The whole entire engine has to come apart. We are looking at $1600 I don't have. I remember I have an extended warranty. Ah Ha! 40 days later, I get my bike back. Seriously. Extended warranty issues, they did not want to pay, blah, blah, blah.
Their diagnosis: The synthetic oil creates a coating on the chain and then fresh oil cannot get in there to lubricate the chain causing premature wear.
Seriously. What was the oil that had coated the chain doing if not lubricating, I have no idea. I wondered if the synthetic oil might not have been playing well with the hydraulic CCT. I will never know. I thought then, with nothing else to point to, that the hydraulic CCT was not getting enough hydraulic pressure from the lower viscosity synthetic. I will never know.
On the slick side, Dad was already happily riding the '07 FJR I had picked out. Money was better, not good enough for a new Sport Tourer. I got my used ST, traded the Katana, and here I am.
So,
NOT turning this into an oil thread, Mike is running Rotella Synthetic. Is there any correlation between the Synthetic oil and the Hydraulic CCT failures?
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