@Mtbjay - The cam timing chain has some normal slack in it when the engine is off. Yes, the oem CCT, (cam chain tensioner), is both spring and hydraulic. The spring is supposed to take up the slack until the oil pressure builds up, at which time the oil pressure will mask any deficiencies in the spring. Some clatter for the first minute or so is normal and common on many bikes, certainly the S10. This is not doing damage. The guides are plastic and intended to manage a little slop. Even at 82k and with a failure, my guides were in great shape, the chain was not showing damage, (though there is no spec for slack), and only the major failure of the CCT caused enough slack for the chain to slip.
What happens with the CCT is that during normal use and wear it slowly adjusts out and is not supposed to move back in. It's a plunger design. On a bad one, it floats back and forth. This can happen due to a weak or broken spring, as well as a poor design that the spring tension is not fully compensating for.
Yours would be rattling on cold start up, and hot start up, and the rattle would last longer than a minute or so if it was going bad. You should notice it getting significantly longer for that rattle period long before it fails. (I did) I was in the middle of a month long Alaska-Yukon trip and not near a dealer, so waited until I got home to take it to the dealer. I literally had an appointment the day it failed to have the valves checked/adjusted and the CCT looked at.
If I understand correctly, the aftermarket manual CCT is not spring loaded at all. You simply adjust it to the correct tension, and lock down the adjuster. It's on you to not over tighten it and to re-adjust it when necessary. Too loose or too tight and you can do damage. If you're admittedly not mechanical, a manual CCT is probably not something you want to do yourself and maintain yourself. Not that you can't learn it, just more work than you need, IMHO.
You really don't need to stress about this now. If the cold start rattle is really lasting a long time, take it to the dealer and have them listen to it. It's not going to skip a tooth until at least 50k or so. Waiting until the 26k valve check interval is generally pretty safe to do. Yamaha France put out a bullitin to have it replaced at the 52k service, if it had not already been done.
I have the '14 CCT in my '12 Super Ten. It's quiet on start up. Not everyone has had that result, so the jury is still out on how much better the newer design is. Yamaha did supersede the part number though, it's not just a '14 p/n, the new one is for all Super Tens. It is also spring and hydraulic, just a slightly different design. I don't know the exact difference. I'm not sure anyone on this board does. The spring/hydraulic design is just a belt and suspenders approach. The Yamaha FJR had only a spring design, and also went thru a couple of CCT re-designs. Perhaps because of that, Yamaha chose this design in the first place, or perhaps due to the dry sump engine, which means after an oil change, oil pressure takes a few moments longer to build up to normal.
