Motorcycle Repair: battery charging issues and cam tensioners, trickle charger, trickle charge

Question
Hi Mark.  Thanks for all of the wonderful help you have given people on this site!   This is a great service you are doing and I have certainly benefited from this tremendously.  I have a 1985 Honda CB650SC Nighthawk.  It is my understanding that they have charging system issues.  (They don't charge at idle, they actually discharge at a rate of 10 amps).  I have a 1 amp trickle charger.  Is it ok to leave this hooked up all the time?  What is the frequency that I should be hooking this up?  Perhaps I need to check the volts periodically, and just go by that?  At what voltage should I put the charger back on/take off?  My second question is regarding the cam chain tensioner.  I hear the cam chain slapping/rattling around a bit at around 3 to 4 thousand RPM, and a bit at idle too.   I figure it is time to change the tensioner  (unless the old one is adjustable some how?  Do you know how to adjust this?). I have read a bit about these APE manual cam chain tensioners.  Do they make them for my bike?  What is your opinion of them compared to stock "automatic" tensioners?    Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks again!

Matt

Answer
The trickle charge is fine to leave on all the time, in fact its really good for the battery. What the trickle charger will do is "excersize" your battery. It'll put a 100 amp load on it for about 4-10 seconds, draining the battery as if you were to try and start the bike, then charge it back up again.
As far as the tensioner goes, i would try to replace it 1st, and see what you have, theres a chance your cam chain is too far out to adjust anymore and the tensioner does no good either way. However its the cheapest/ easiest repair as opposed to doing an r&r to the chain itself...

Hope this helps!

~Mark