Motorcycle Repair: 1975 Honda 360T Broken cam chain guide, tension bolt, starter clutch

Question
Hi Bill:
  The cam chain guide and the slipper tensioner are both broken on my 1975 Honda 360T, having been destroyed by the cam chain. I would like to replace them but none of my manuals cover the procedure. I have removed everything down to and including the cylinder. Can you give me some direction on how to proceed? The cam chain seems to be in good condition,I can see no damage.
  Thanks for your previous advise on the starter clutch problem on another of my 360's. The new starter clutch springs corrected the problem and the starter now works fine.
              Regards:
              Ralph  rljones@columbus.rr.com  

Answer
http://www.powersportspro.com/partsfish/login.asp

Sign up and go to add vehicle, then HONDA, then CB360T

You will see that the tensioner and slipper blades are just dropped into the tensioner holder and a recess in the front of the crankcase. Just pull up on the remaining pieces and they should lift right out. There are small cushions on both ends of the tensioner blade that must be in place for the assembly to work properly. The bottom one, down inside the tensioner arm/bar often traps the little cushion end in the recess. Replace everything for the tensioner blades/guides and two cushions. The tensioner system is the same as the CB350F and CB400F and has been a source of problems in all applications. When the camchains get loose, they often start to wear the pivot point of the tensioner bar, locking the mechanism in place. Loosen the camchain tensioner nut/bolt and see if the parts will move up and down with a long screwdriver. The parts are spring-loaded, so should move when the lockbolt is loosened. BE VERY CAREFUL not to overtighten the tension bolt in all of this. They have a shoulder for an o-ring and are weakened there, often shearing off in the cases. Removal is VERY difficult!

Unfortunately, you really didn't need to remove the head and cyls to replace the parts, unless there is shrapnel inside that requires attention and cleaning.
If the engine has been running for awhile with broken tensioners/guides, the camchain gets whipped all over the place. Check for wear spots inside the cylinder tunnel or bottom case. This all causes the camchain to stretch out and it may be weakened somewhat. Overall mileage on the parts and the amount of time that the guides were broken all play a part in this. You can get new aftermarket camchains from Ebay sources with masterlinks that will work, saving you the trouble of splitting the cases to install a new endless camchain, which the factory prefers.

If there is a lot of debris from the result of the broken parts, you may have to look at pulling the clutch cover and cleaning the oil pump filter and screen and rinsing out the bottom end of the engine, as much as you can.

Glad your starter clutch repair worked out okay.

Bill Silver