The worm gear does not gall and stick. it becomes polished and does not stick the way it was intended to. Take a close look at the worm gear, you will see what I mean. Only a small percent of it is in contact with the piston.

TCT noises do not all go away at idle. In the beginning stages yes. more than 50% of my customers have the noise constant...even worse when the idle is raised.

Bottom line, the piston/worm gear assy must remain at it's full extended length. If it is allowed to slip even a fraction, it will cause the chain to slack and make noise.

My modded tensioner is not sandblasted. I do not stretch the springs in any way.

Oil pressure is not the primary factor that the TCT uses to keep its tension.

 

Well thus far, from what youve said and ive read. Many of yours have come back and need to be "redone". yes or no?
Not one of mine has ever been back. And ive been doing this mod for 4 years.
The tensioner is constantly shifting position as the engine runs. It has to move around, it isnt just fixed in one position.
So yes it does "stick"/not extend to the needed length" because if it didnt and was mobile, then it would be able to take up the slack that is causing the chain to stack and make noise.
Main reason i know its a volume/pressure issue is that ive been able to cure 99% of them with an oil change to conventional oil. Right away the sound is gone.
This is what tipped me off that there is a volume issue. So i then began drilling them, and right away using the persons original tensioner, i had NO more issues.
Install a brand new tensioner, and in less than 10k have the rattle back? yeah theres another symptom that should immediately throw up a flag for anyone trying to figure out whats going on.
For sure though synthetic has some odd effects on this tensioner.
Bottom line, this discussion is helpful to all but it shouldnt even have to be going on. Honda needs to step up NOW and fix this BS problem.

 

Like I said, I dont sandblast them. So no, mine do not come back. Not even one. What I recommend on the board and what I sell are two different things. Anyone is welcomed to take apart one of my 2nd gen tensioners. you will not find a sandblasted worm gear.

People on the board sandblast them.

We can agrree we have both found a cure, though very different.

 

Nice.
Cracks me up that honda cant do it, you and I are the only people who have.

 

fantastic write up. mine has started this junk on me. prolly gonna hit up billman for a PROPER TCT

 

In both my engines I used nothing but true syn oils, ranging from Shell Helix 5W-40, 0W-40 and 0W-30, Valvoline (half syn.. okay) 5W-30 to Amsoil SSO 0W-30 and never heard the TCT for any longer than a split second during a cold start.
And so far I've heard it maybe 6 times in 6 years of ownership.

As I've mentioned before I find it hard to believe the coast side of the TC is strong enough (has enough tension) to push the piston back with the lowest little bit of oil pressure pushing it out, at idle for example.
As if there was no oil / no oil pressure at all.
That piston is 16mm, with minimum (hot) idle oil pressure at 250 kPa you're looking at 5 kilo's of "force" (kilo isn't force...) at least.
That should be enough to push that piston out and provide enough oil to make the worm move out of the piston to hold its position.

That said: without oil/oil pressure I can not see the worm retracting / giving way either.
I've had a tensioner - in parts - on my workbench for a while and its impossible to push/turn (what I mean is: it turns as you push it but you should only push it) the worm in the piston by hand (against the big spring), even with some oil on it.
With pressurized oil I can see it happening.

Btw.. there is oil flow through the TCT as it has an inlet (between the o-rings) and a small outlet.
There's also the little check valve giving oil a way out (as long as the pressure is high enough) - missing in this picture.


From experience I know not to mess with working parts, IF my TCT should fail at any time I think I would start by drilling the inlet hole bigger.

 

Yup.

Once you understand its design, you realize what has to be done. its amazing how large the oil jet screws orifice is. Then you look at the inlet port, and go... wait.. why so small?
Thats why i enlarged the inlet port. between the jet being quite large and allowing oil to work the tct, and then the relief/drain port which you circled, i knew i couldnt hurt the design any by adding some oil volume.
Thus far it has proven to be exactly what was needed.

 

Billman,
are you willing to say what you do with your tensioner that you sell? I read in a previous thread about your solution but I can't seem to find it. I'm sure your idea has evolved and improved since then anyway.

I had Dave drill out the hole on mine and the sound returned. I'm not saying daves solution doesn't work on most, I'm just saying it came back with mine. It may have been a combination of running the supercharger and amsoil 0w-30 liquid gold sso. which is very thin it seems.

I'm curious to what inline pro has done to modify their tensioner also, have you taken one of these apart?

 

Once one fully understands a mechanical design, one should also be able to explain why it failed.

First thing to do is to find the (root) failure.
In this case the symptom is a rpm dependant ticking noise.
Are we sure this is caused by chain links hitting the bottom of the tensioning guide due to slack in the coast side of the chain?
Is this true without a doubt?

With the TCT I can't really explain why it creates timing chain noise.
Without oil it can't create tension but it also won't be able to push the worm in the piston to create slack = no chain slack.
With oil it will push the piston out to create tension and the worm will turn out the piston to back it up = no chain slack.
Thus: I don't fully understand how it works.

Is there any chance the noise is the timing chain being too tight?
I remember tightning the chain on my dirtbike way to tight and it created a noise.

 

On yours it wasnt the 0-30 remember, it was the jacked up chain guide. Im trying to remember, that was so long ago.

(10 mins goes by)

I remember now. You ate up 2 of the modded ones in 24 hours. remember? It was just after you and brian put the new head on, (snapped chain guide) and it was coupled with the 0/30. So i look at that as not the modded tens fault, it was outside the control group which has 0 failures. You then fixed the chain guide, and went back to normal oil and had no problems. Thats how i remember it, we shall see what your side of the story tells.