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I never thought these words would cross my lips, I just bought a Harley. Price was too good to pass up. I paid $3800 for a softail duce with 10,000 miles on it. Fires right, took it for a short ride when I got home.

Had to chuckle after I posted this, just realized I bought a Harley on Friday the 13th!

Good luck with it! I always wished Triumph would of came out with 1500 cc America or Speedmaster.

I am still die hard Triumph just a really good deal and a change of pace. Turns out the cam chain tensioner fix was never done so cost me an additional $1200 in parts and tools. Bike runs very strong but the tensioners will deteriorate and run bits of plastic through the oil system causing catastrophic failure. I bought gear drive cams and gears and new bearings. I also bought better lifters to put on the new cams. Should be bullet proof when I'm done. No chain, all gear to gear. With such low miles it should last especially since it isn't my main ride.

My Softail now has S&S gear drive cams and S&S lifters. Funny to do that, all the old Triumphs were always gear drive cams. I was also thinking today that I took a step backwards with the Primary, the SM has a gear drive Primary. Now I'm back to chain drive with the HD.

P.S. The tensioners had very little wear so no issues with plastic bits. The tappets, cams, pushrods and rockers showed no wear so this engine will be tight when done. Just need to put the pushrods and rockers back together, I am waiting on some gaskets and seals. Had a bad experience with Pocono HD already too.

Did you walk in to Pocono HD with a Triumph tee shirt?

I thought about it but no I didn't. Would have been funny though. Made me laugh when I read your post.Took a week to get lifters that were supposed to be next day. Gave me a discount but still more than I could have bought them for online and the whole point behind going to them was to get them faster.

Brick and Motor stores have to try their best now a days so... even next day on line isn't always next day.

I know, I had everything I bought online for several days before they got the lifters. I went there because they told me next day when the ones I had ordered online, they told me the day after I ordered them, were on back order.So I ordered them from the dealer 3 days before I got the other parts and planned on doing the job over the weekend. The lifters came in on Wednesday. The shop did the best they could, gave me the lifters at cost and 15% off any future purchase.

I learned this morning I dodged a bullet. I knew about the cam tensioners but what I didn't know about is a flaw with the crank in the twin cam 88s. The early ones 99-2002 had Timken bearings on both sides of the crank, 2003 on, including the later M8 engines, had a flat roller on the sprocket side. The Timkens provided better support than the flat roller. The later ones tended to slip on the crank pin causing the flywheels to become uneven eventually destroying the engine. Making them so damaged nothing can be salvaged for a rebuild. Mine is a 2000 with the Timken bearings. Much less likely to slip on the crank pin unless I go trying to get as much as I can out of it like a big bore etc... They used the flat roller through the twin cam models al the way until they stopped production up through the end of the M8 never correcting the problem. The flat Roller was done to simplify and speed up production that way they could just drop the case on the crank never owning up to the catastrophic engine failure issue just like the cam chain tensioners. Both should have been a recall. They sold a kit to change the flat roller back to a timkin like the early models. You could do that or buy an aftermarket crank from S&S or Andrews before you had an issue. Really crappy thing to do to your customer base. I really prefer my Triumphs. Never had catastrophic problems like that from the factory that I am aware of except maybe that starter boss issue but I know quite a few of those out there still going strong. mine and Wendys for 2. I have the safe start but never installed it.

When I was torquing down the rocker support plates I had the front cyl. completed cover on and all. I was on the last bolt and wanted to go for a ride when it snapped! I had to take the rockers back out and the plate under them off the top of the head to get the broken bolt out. Here is the part you guys will love, I call Harley and they tel me the bolt is obsolete!! Can't get it, go to a hardware store!! All it is is a 5/16 18 cap bolt 2 1/2" long.. Nothing special. Couldn't get one so I got 4 grade 8 bolts with washers and torqued them down then went riding. Went quite a few places locally as a shake down run with the new gear drive cams. Bike runs strong but has a carb issue, it stumbles once in a while. definately carb issue, it did the same thing before the cams.

Just bought a chain and sprocket kit for the Harley so no more belt drive.