its a 50/50 when it skips,couldve fell right back in place.but its best to mark everything where its at so you know which way to go to put it back to timing if need be.

 

Personally this doesn't sound like a CCT. Well, not entirely. The bike died on him. If the front CCT went out, it would have made a helluva racket and died. If it stayed in time, it would have ticked maybe, but definitely not died if this was the case.

Very slight chance it skipped timing, one tooth, but then didn't skip more? This is highly unlikely methinks.

Cold exhaust on one side at idle is normal. All of our bikes exhaust is cold on one side at low rpm's then the "hot" exhaust is balanced by the higher pressure of the higher rpm's.

How loud was the ticking? Was it metallic sounding?

 

If this means the front header pipe was cold, then I agree it was running on one cylinder.

 

Oops you're right, I didn't read that carefully enough.

I suppose if the front isn't getting proper compression and is running cold, the valves could be bent. Sounds like CCT failure is a possibility...

I still want to know more about the "ticking" and "clicking" sounds. Most people describe the failure as more of a munching, crunching, the motor is eating itself metal noise. And a "clicking" noise generally seems electrical. But shadowrider could just be really modest in his descriptions

Problem is, shadowrider, if your CCT has failed causing these symptoms, it's too late to replace it... it's already done much more damage to the motor. Bent valves at the least but could be more. You will have to replace it, but make sure this is what happened. The best way to see if damage has happened is to do a valve clearance check as per the service manual. If your valves are WAY out of spec, they are bent and you'll know your CCT failed and the timing skipped, meaning you'll have to tear the front cylinder apart.

If they're not, something else is making your header run cold and dying while running, and I'd look into electrical problems.

Edit: actually, like other posters were saying, just taking the valve cover off and looking at the timing marks on the sprockets at TDC will tell you if timing has skipped.

 

After rereading the symptoms as stated, I'm not sure it's not electrical. I had very similar symptoms when my R/R failed and I was fortunate enough to hear my R/R failure. If you have ever heard a small capacitor explode, you have heard the sound. After that the symptoms were near identical to Shadowrider's. As was said above, the verification of your cam timing will certainly move you closer to knowing which system has failed.