[Dubbsy]

1996 600 F3

So it appears that I've fallen victim to the cam chain tensioner problems that I was told so much about when I first picked up the bike. Was fine for the first 1200 miles I had it but apparently winding it out at the race track was enough to upset it.

Does anyone know what is causing the tensioners to fail? I'm assuming it's simply a spring inside of that housing holding tension - is that spring breaking or just experiencing accelerated fatigue?
Why does it quit when the bike warms up (This seems to be a symptom from other posts - if it's not I've got another problem)? I can't imagine any part of this assembly 'warming up' and expanding enough to resolve the issue.

If it's in it's infant stages and goes away when warmed up, how much of a chance do I have of causing bigger problems riding it with the 'noise'. Guys I've talked to said they've seen the noise last from 600 miles to the time they got rid of the bike - some upwards of 20k. I can't forsee it being bad enough yet to cause the cam timing to go out enough to cause PTV problems.

It's something I'd rather wait until winter or next spring to replace - although it does look rather straightforward. Would be nice and easy to replace with OEM and not have to worry about false tension from the valvetrain when installing a manual tensioner - but why set myself up for failure again.