{US} Tech Bulletin M2016-004 Cam Chain Tensioner Noise

[hallard85]

Had the new tensioner installed at the dealer. I didn't have any symptoms on the Orginal one. Now when cold till the bike is good and warmed up I have noise. Then it's quiet. I think I'm going back to the dealer to see if it needs tweaking....

My early 2016 squeals loudly for the first 10 minutes and then is quieter (although still kind of rattly).  It did not do that new and the demo bike did not do that. 
Deal says thats the way it is.  Says it takes an act of god for Yamaha to pay for replacing a cct and they have only done it one one fz-09.
 
Even with ear plugs it kind of bothers me.

That loud squeal you're referencing is actually the bike's clutch basket, and not related to the CCT.  CCT noise is more of a fast clack/chain slap sound coming from the right side. 
There seems to be no cure for the loud clutch basket chirping, just a quirk of this bike (and the FZ-09... not sure about the XSR900 since it has the assist/slipper clutch).

[bruceintucson]

Called the Dealer, they just came in. Appt. is for Thursday morning. Will let the Forum know how it goes.

[fj09max]

I have a Canadian FJ09 / 2015 with 21,000km on it. Did call my dealer yesterday. They did some research with the service bulletin (I have sent him by email thanks OP for this), at Yamaha Canada. It appear that we also have the TSB over here. This is not a recall (yet?) but the will exchange under warranty the CCT if there is an abnormal condition. Mine is on order Quite happy with the dealer.

[rocky5000100]

Repair is all done. Noise at idle appears to be gone.
 

[bruceintucson]

Called the Dealer, they just came in. Appt. is for Thursday morning. Will let the Forum know how it goes.

Got the new CCT installed. Now all I hear is gear whine from the tranny. Didn't think it was really noisy to begin with, but guess it was. They even washed the bike! :-) 

[stevesweetz]

I wonder how they get to that bolt on the head cover. I mean, you can see it through a gap in frame without taking anything off, but it doesn't seem like there's enough room to fit an allen wrench in there. I wonder if they drop the radiator and go in from the front or lift the tank, I guess the first is probably way easier.

[bruceintucson]

I wonder how they get to that bolt on the head cover. I mean, you can see it through a gap in frame without taking anything off, but it doesn't seem like there's enough room to fit an allen wrench in there. I wonder if they drop the radiator and go in from the front or lift the tank, I guess the first is probably way easier.

Don't know, he showed me the bolt but I didn't ask how he got to it. They didn't drop the radiator, know that for sure. Looks like a pretty straight shot taking off the right lower (turn signal) and right middle plastic & using an extension. 

[js645]

Stopped by the dealer today and spoke with the parts guy. Didn't seem like having it replaced was an issue only the replacement CCT is listed as back ordered until mid September. Guess I'll have to wait, curious to see if anyone else has gotten this response.

[adjuster]

As noted, the ONLY sure fix is a manual APE or Graves unit.
 
The stock design is flawed, and will eventually fail. It's just a matter of time and wear depending on the bike/CCT production.
 
As noted in the TSB, Yamaha changed the machine work internally during production to supply more oil to the stock CCT to try and negate the wear issue. But you have a metal part made of a stamped spring steel basket, holding a small ratchet mechanism into a bore with grooves machined into the ID of it. The "teeth" of the small parts are supposed to lock into the grooves machined into the bore, and it's all under spring tension from a coil spring, and the small stamped spring steel basket.
 
These parts are supposed to limit and lock the tensioner into the correct point depending on wear over time and use of the system. As wear happens, the ratchet clicks down to the next setting, keeping tension at the right point.
 
But the flawed design allows the ratchet to bounce in and out of being locked or not locked, and as you might imagine, these SHARP by design interlocking points swiftly become worn smooth and no longer work at all. It then becomes a spring without any sort of dampener. Imagine riding your bike with just springs, and no pistons to control the oil in the shock or forks. It would pogo up and down and be impossible to ride the bike.
 
Now consider that there is only a small trickle or oil to this area, that's now increased by the TSB or newer production CP3 engines,  but still you have small metal sharp edges holding only by the reality they remain sharp. When they wear, they will slip, and then they will move up and down depending on load to the timing chain. (And it loads and unloads every time you change RPM up or down... so you get the point, this part is CONSTANTLY UNDER CHANGING WEAR/LOAD.)
 
To illustrate this another way, imagine a bolt with a nut on it. Now imagine that nut cut into 3 parts, held in place by a cheap stamped spring steel clip. Under pressure, the parts of the "nut" can be forced apart, and slide up or down a few threads on the bolt and then lock back into position. This in reverse is how the stock CCT is designed.
And now put this under loads that exceed what the small, cheap stamped metal spring can hold.. allowing the nut to be bounced up and down on the bolt threads with every loading and unloaded force.. You ride your bike, you load the timing chain one way when you roll onto the throttle to accelerate, and it loads the chain the other way when you back off the throttle to slow down or stop. Over and over. And over and over and over and over. Every time you change RPM up or down, you bounce the spring loaded nut up and down the bolt... And what's going to happen to those nice sharp threads on the bolt and nut? You will get wear. And the "threads" on the stock Yamaha CCT are very small. Nothing like a real nut or bolt. If you tried to thread a nut and bolt with the small, shallow "threads" on our CCT's the bolt would strip out if you tried to hold anything in place/together with it. And since they are not very deep, the wear would be nearly instant....
 
Oh my. What a image there Yamaha. Perhaps you should really do something more than just add more oil to this flawed design?
 
So, any version of this design is going to fail. It is only a matter of time. Period. It might not be for 50,000 miles, but it's clearly also happening much faster than that, and some just make noise from the very start.
 
Yamaha has been revising this part since 2014. And folks, it takes awhile to get a revised part into the parts supply chain, it's not something you do overnight. So, that means Yamaha has known about this problem since introduction of this bike to the market. And it's been working on a fix since that point.
 
Now, the CP3 engine is an absolute gem. It's combination of low and top end power and size/weight are perfect for a street bike. It's going to have a long life, and I'm sure in various forms, going to thrill owners over many years with it's performance.
 
But Yamaha has yet to remedy this CCT problem, and the fix is so very simple. It's often the basic and easy choices that big companies can't make. And this is a good case study. It would be the perfect thesis for a MBA/PHD in business management and how companies are limited by the choices of those in charge, and how often the idea or desire of a leader tends to ignore the simple easy fix, in an effort to please the boss's desire for a ego driven result.
 
A manual cam chain tensioner is the simple, easy and proven way to solve this problem. It's the cheapest to make. Easy to install. Easy to adjust, and as every race team on the planet will tell you, the dead nuts reliable way to assure a chain will not be too loose or too tight.
 
Period.
 
Want to avoid this problem? Buy a manual CCT. Set it and forget it for the future of most owners of this motorcycle. If you are one of the VERY FEW who ride their bikes more than 40,000 miles, you might have to adjust the tension, but it's more likely you will need a valve shim adjustment by that point, and doing it all at the same time will be easy. (Should be included in the valve adjustment if you think about it.)
 
With the use of synthetic oils, and good filters, the reality is the engine, including the valve shims, cam chain sliders/tensioners and other moving/wear parts will go the life of the motorcycle without needing any adjustment or replacement.
 
Spend your money on chains, sprockets and fun Farkles for your bike.
 
Come on Yamaha, get it right, and just put a manual CCT in there, and then man up and pay those of us who have had serious issues with this bogus design what it cost us to fix your failure.
 
Thanks in advance, I doubt I'll ever see any compensation from Yamaha, but I still love the bike.

[moizjazz]

Found this online. Quite useful as it gives full details of CCT mod (4th generation) that yamaha is implementing.
 
 
https://www.docdroid.net/3Dowl5v/mt09new.pdf.html

[adjuster]

Looks like Greek to me... LOL
 
But it's the same TSB as what's posted up in the front of this thread.
 
Note on the page where you see the "O-Ring" and "Non-O-Ring" style. The two CCT's in the examples are not set the same. When you turn the shaft in the CCT, it retracts or extends the base pad that contacts the tensioner frame. The cam chain slides on a nylon pad that is attached to the aluminum tensioner frame.
 
So, the stock arrangement is constantly under spring pressure, pushing the tensioner tight to the chain. The "base" setting is to keep that tensioner in theory from just bouncing in and out against the spring. (the big spring, not the tiny one or the flat bent metal spring that holds the toothed nut parts in place until it breaks.)
 
So, you have excess pressure on the tensioner all the time with the stock setup.
 
With a manual CCT, you set the tension to where it's snug, and then back it off a quarter turn. The chain is now free to slide, but since their is NOT a spring, the tensioner never can move back up away from the chain at all. It also is not under undue pressure of a spring all the time causing wear.
 
The changes in tension and load on the chain are still there, and the tensioners on both the intake and exhaust side of the chain do their job, and keep the chain from flapping around, while allowing enough clearance to not cause excessive loading on the cams or drive sprocket.
 
Indeed, if you do adjust a manual CCT too tight, the nylon sliders will swiftly wear to the point that they are no longer too tight, and the chain will be perfect. And the wear on the sliders/tensioners will nearly cease.
 
Again, with the stock design, you can't ever wear the sliders to the point where the spring tension is not always pushing it tight to the chain, causing undue wear on the tensioners.
 
And if the fragile parts that are now supposed to get more oil fail? (And trust me, they are fragile, many broke due to folks trying to limit the pogo-effect of the flawed design backing out too much by putting a bolt down into the CCT, and locking the ratchet parts down, so they could not "back off and make noise." This resulted in a TSB from Yamaha to watch for a bolt and lock nut, and if they found that, to deny warranty coverage for the failure.
 
Others broke with nobody putting anything in there. They are just small parts, one of them is a cheap flat metal spring clip to hold the ratchet teeth to the "cone" end of the shaft. This is simple metal reality. You bend spring steel 90 degrees and you work harden it at that bend. Now put it under stress and vibration loads, and it fails in short order.
 
What Yamaha has to do is not flow more oil to this device, but to re-design it so no fragile parts are involved, and reduce the spring pressure on the tensioner as not to cause excessive wear over time there as well.
 
But I digress, a manual CCT solves all these problems, and only presents one problem.
 
It has to be adjusted if the cam chain starts to slap the tensioner, and make noises. It should not do this for many 10's of thousands of miles or more, but when you do need to adjust it, you just loosen the lock nut, and tighten the shaft a 1/4 turn or so. Should fix the noise and you lock the shaft with the nut again and ride another 10k or more.
 
But that's way to complicated for Yamaha right?

[adjuster]

PS: One more thing. The stock CCT has a roll pin to secure the tensioner contact pad to the shaft.
 
All the load through a cheap .02cent roll pin. A pin that has to survive thousands of miles of vibrations and loads.
 
The manual CCTs all have sold shafts that bell out into the pad. Sold metal. No roll pins to fail.
Big sturdy lock nuts and solid shafts in a alloy housing that's designed to block off the oil port. (Since you don't need oil to a non-moving part.)
 
Just saying, hello Yamaha, is it really that hard to do this right, or would you rather keep on painting the fancy turd, put a shiny bow on it, and tell us it no longer stinks?
 
How about you pay back those of us who had to buy Manual CCT's or lost a few grand due to engine failures and the desire to actually ride our motorcycles in the same year we bought them in?
 
That's what I would do if I was running Yamaha. Show some good faith. You build great bikes, and I love my FJ09, and loved the FZ09 too. And my FZ1 before that.
 
But I don't like being told I was a liar, idiot and did not know what I was talking about, and then have the TSB come out and prove me correct. (And Yamaha resolutely trying to "save" this flawed, fragile design?)
 
Hello, insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and thinking you will get it right this time.

[rodan]

Stopped by the dealer today and spoke with the parts guy. Didn't seem like having it replaced was an issue only the replacement CCT is listed as back ordered until mid September. Guess I'll have to wait, curious to see if anyone else has gotten this response.

Now I'm doubly glad I opted for the APE manual tensioner...  if this goes anything like the fiasco with the factory heated grips, it'll be next spring before many folks are enjoying their bikes!
 
The manual tensioner is dead simple, cheap, and a 20 minute install.  It really is a no-brainer! 

[thruster8999]

More and more I think about switching to the APE. Is the a complete writeup on the install and do I really need to take the side cover off to install?

[stevesweetz]

So I called the dealer today to see what the status was on the parts and they said they're not getting them until September!

It's worth noting, I've got a kit #2 bike. I think everyone I've seen reporting they had the TSB repair done so far has a kit #1 bike.
 
So...I'm probably going to order an APE. I want to do some long distance touring and I'm just worried about the wear being incurred on the chain and sprockets by it running lose.