www.zxrworld.co.uk

Hello all i am in desperate need of some advise as i can not get hold of my normal contact as hes driving,

Please can some body helo me with my problem, the issuse is the 12mm bolt that holds the spring in under cam chain the head of the bolt has snapped what do i do??

Thanks very much Jamie

Very much depends on EXACTLY what you were doing at the time...................the FULL story please and I'm am sure we can sort it.

right it all started when i was sorting my air lock in my cooling system and i had be informed to tighten my 12mm nut on my cam chain at the bottom of the engine on the right hand side, so i took my right hand side fairing off and just tightned up the 12mm bolt by about a quater of a turn and then a bit more it ended up i went to far so the bolt as snapped and the head of the bolt cam of and a long spring came out.
i do belive its attache to the tensionor so do i just replace that.
im going to get hold of my normal contact as he can view it as its rather hard to explain.
but if you understand this i appricate any comments
Jamie

It's late and I dont have the time right now cos my lovely wife is in bed and she is planning on tightening my bolt !


I can only hope that it was NOT your "normal contact" who told you to tighten that 12mm bolt on the bottom of the cam chain tensioner.................cos who ever did is thick as pig poo and should not be allowed within 10 feet of a spanner and certainly not allowed near a ZXR400.

Sounds like you can get away with getting a new tensioner body and assembly.

Did you turn the engine after the incident or was it running at the time ? If so your going to have to check the valve timing and make sure the chain hasn't jumped across the cam sprockets.

Still can't imagine why you would be tightening that bolt anyways - I think some one was trying to suggest you manually reset the auto tensioner but what that has to do with an airlock in your cooling system gauwd only knows !!

Looks like you may have got lucky ! Read workshop manuals and understand what your doing or ask here first before getting involved with something.

I have got that bit wrong i got told to check to see if it had been tightend and ovbs me being inexpirenced i have prob over tightend the bolt or maybe the bot was old and weak or both but my normal contact is very good with the zxr400's ive seen alot of his work since i met him if would not of been for my normal contact i think my other zxr400 l2 prob would of had a cham chain snap and engine would of been scrap coz head gasket had gone etc and i was lucky to notice with my dads head gasket going recently before mine.

i was doing 2 or more jobs at once maybe i should concentrate on one at a time i.e cooling system, cam chain, polishing etc or not listen to some body else saying do full turns as i was only nipping the 12mm bolt up.

But i did not have the bike running when it snapped and i did not turn engine over as i think i may of thought FFS and i just put the bike back in shed without putting r/h fairing back on

But thanks very much guys
i just hope its not going to be nothing to serious as its my pride and joy and sounds amazing

Jamie

Sounds like you could be OK

Main body for tensioner: 12048-1125 + O ring: 92055-086

I will assume the bolt comes with it as it's not shown on fiche.

Your still going to have to check your timing though as it sounds like the tension has been taken off the chain , when you instal new parts you need to turn engine to make the auto tensioner spring into action, hopefully all will bed in and your timing will be OK.

Use the search function of the site to find out about valve timing and finding the online workshop manual.

Generally for an airlock in the sytem you remove rad cap , start bike , warm it up and rev it mildly then be ready wih the rad cap as soon as the coolant starts to raise out of the fill neck. Can't remember if there is a bleed nipple somewhere on the system but that is another option too.

Best of luck,

MM!

I'd agree 100% with the Mori dude


It might be possible to extract the broken end of the 12mm bolt from the tensioner body...............if you can do that then all you need in the 12mm bolt.
I dont think Kawasaki sell them spearatly but picking up a second hand one should be easy I might even one in an old broken tensioner.

I would reset the tensioner from scratch and once that is done turn the engine over by hand and check the valve timing it's very unlikly to have jumped a tooth but you never know.................I'm sure there is a how to do it guide for fitting the tensioner somewhere on the forum you will of course have to modify it slightly to suit your circumstances.

If I were you I'd not be listening to anything more from who ever it was that told you to tighten that bolt.

Remember all bolts have a torque setting and they have it for good reason...................

And adjuster bolts nearly always have a lock nut of some kind so if there is no lock nut then it's not likely that it needs adjusted.

Good luck