Restoring First Gen CCTs to full functionality, I hope.

I'm loving riding my '86 VF500 F but don't want to hurt its otherwise nice, low mileage engine due to CCT problems. It has what, based on a lot of research I'v done, is probably a CCT produced clicking sound. A number of knowledgable folks have said, "Don't worry about it most of them sound like that." but others have said, "You'll trash your engine if you keep running it like that.
After a good many hours of internet research I've found out a lot about Generation One CCTs and even a couple of proposed methods for repairs. It is a fact that the CCT is a basically fault prone design which has been observed to have at least two failure modes and is reputed to have had one factory upgrade to attempt to improve it. The first is a weak spring, which was reportedly made stronger in the later replacement parts run. The second is wear on the rod and/or locking arm the rod goes through.
Wanting to understand the situation, I spent $14.00 on E Bay and got a front and rear pair of CCTs from a supposedly 19K mile VF500F so I could try to understand the issues. The pictures of what they look like assembled and apart are attached. Neither showed any significant wear on on the locking arm or rod. A previous poster who fixed his CCT knock with a rare NOS replacement part, commented that while it was easy to "cock" his old tensioner for installation by hand, the spring in his NOS one was much stronger. Testing that I did showed a pull of only 8 pounds was enough to pull the arm into the position where one inserts a wire to cock the CCT in the loose position. That seems pretty wimpy.
One suggested repair is to smooth the rod if it has grooves or roughness and to first weld up and then re-drill the hole in the locking arm so that it has nice sharp edges to lock on to the rod. The other is to remove the pin which the spring attaches to in the arm and re-position it half an inch farther away on the arm so the spring is stretched more when it is in its most relaxed position.
What I'm wondering is, why not research springs in depth, find out what the original factory spring characteristics were, get a 50% stronger, good quality spring and pop it in? I realize that I will need to do some serious homework to determine what is needed and locate a source for such springs, but is there a conceptual problem here that I'm missing? As you can see in the pictures, the exact length and diameter are not critical, there is room for variation in both; what counts is rate and strength. Being able to provide info on how to readily restore Gen One CCTs to functionality could keep a lot of bikes going strong!
One thing that is a mystery to me so far though: what is the function of the plastic tube covering the spring? As you can see in the pictures, the as installed in a running bike tube, had both ends crushed (compressed) by the metal parts the spring connects.
Your thoughts, especially from spring gurus, please.

Jay

 

You know, I researched this myself about 15 years ago. There were some design changes through the years that led to better tensioners but it had nothing to do with the spring - it was the little plate that locks against the shaft. If I remember correctly Honda made that part a bit thicker.

I've never seen any tensioner failures on anything except the 83 VF750F's. With the valve spring issue being the HUGE elephant in the room I would say you might consider focusing your efforts elsewhere in the top of that engine.