82 Maxim XJ550J cam chain lock bolt stripped

Hello fellow members! I have a question on my 550. I wanted to adjust the cam chain tension today. I turned the mark to the 'C', loosened the lock nut, and thought that it seemed rather loose already. The tension bolt seemed to be in there snug tho, so I backed it out a few turns to allow it to tension itself. Ran the tension bolt back in snug, when I went to set the lock nut, it just kept turning. I am thinking that it is possibly stripped. I wanted to take it out and take a look at the threads, however, I tried looking in my manual; is it safe to just thread that tension bolt completely out, or is something going to go 'twang' or something go 'ting' as it falls down??? I tried to see how it was put together in my manual, but I can't really tell. Thanks for any help!

 

If your tensioner anything like the Seca 650, the rod or spring won't be displaced when the bolt's loosened or removed. The end of the rod pushes against a damper which is like a springy vertical bow. Photos attached, the first one shows the tensioning bolt holding the rod back.

 

very good! I was looking for a break down or pictures like that in my manual, but couldn't find anything. Thank you so much! Maybe someone with a Maxim can confirm that they are the same. I appreciate your photos and post very much!

 

I think the 550 tensioner is manual , the 650 and 750 is automatic , In other words no adjustment required.

 

Thank you for your reply. No, I have a manual (book) for the bike, have had the bike since new, and have adjusted it many times. It 'self-adjusts' after you loosen the lock nut and then the tensioner bolt. I have done this for almost 40 years now and I think it may have some bad threads on it now, just don't want to take the bolt completely out to check threads and mess something else up.

 

I think the 550 & 650 tensioners are different, parts diagrams along with EBay photos of the 550 tensioner attached

 

The cam chain tensioner for the 550s manual some of the 650s the early ones have a manual unit unit. If I recall correctly you can get upgrade to an automatic tensioner charcoal at XJ forever sells them and details it in his catalog and that way you don't have to do the manual tensioning of the chain which on the 5:50 is quite a bit ch. It is always nice to have somebody with small hands when you need to adjust the tensioner. It is nice that you can actually talk down the lock nut with a torque wrench because of the size of the bolt being so much smaller than the size of the nut.

 

When adjusting the tensioner before you loosen the bolt in the nut set the motor to the c position so it is ready to be adjusted that way when you loosen the nut in the bolt you should hear the rod pop forward if it was short. Then you can immediately tighten down the bolt in the lock nut.

 

The body of the tensioner is just the whole that the rod plunger slides into. The plunger is long enough so that it will not fall out when that bolt is removed or loosened.

 

No bitch to me to adjust! I just use my ratchet wrench with an extension and deep-well 12mm for the locknut loosen, and then change to a 10mm for the adjustment bolt. No bitch to it. No problem. Extension fits on torque wrench too. Easy.

 

Thanks for the info!