Howl coming from front

[bigbore2]

When I talked to Foreign Speedo in San Diego, the guy told me with their FREE DIAGNOSIS if the speedo only needs a lube to get rid of the howl [gears/parts are all working ok] they take apart the speedo and grease the gears and send it back. Well, I take stuff apart, can grease it and put it back together, so this afternoon I did just that.  I needed to take off the fairing anyway to look at the damage to it, so I removed the fairing, then took out the light and speedo/tach/fuel cluster from the fairing, then removed the speedo from the cluster and looked at it.  The gears are all right there and was not hard at all to add some grease and spin it a few times.  I am waiting for a clutch master cylinder housing so I can do a test ride so next week.  I will get back and let you know if the re-grease got rid of the howl.  By the way, the speedo howl on my 84 is so loud as to almost drown out the engine.

[fadingfastsd]

Hate to revive a dead thread, but I figured I'd chime in from experience. I know this noise, and I had this exact problem. I put my speedo gear drive hub back on the front axle, and did not align the teeth in the speedo drive clutch ring with the notches in the gear drive unit. It's easily do-able. The howl is from the speedo gear drive hub spinning from friction against the clutch ring, but it's not happy about it because the little teeth on the ring are riding on the hub gears and forcing it to turn. Eventually results (I got about 500 miles like this without fixing it....i'm an idiot) before the clutch ring gives and falls apart. This in turn toasts your wheel bearing on the left side at least, destroys the gear drive hub, and grinds off the teeth on the drive ring.

Make double sure you meshed the teeth on the ring with the hub correctly! Or you'll be replacing wheel bearings & the hub, like I am right now.
-Evan

[Dan Filetti]

Hate to revive a dead thread, but I figured I'd chime in from experience. I know this noise, and I had this exact problem. I put my speedo gear drive hub back on the front axle, and did not align the teeth in the speedo drive clutch ring with the notches in the gear drive unit. It's easily do-able. The howl is from the speedo gear drive hub spinning from friction against the clutch ring, but it's not happy about it because the little teeth on the ring are riding on the hub gears and forcing it to turn. Eventually results (I got about 500 miles like this without fixing it....i'm an idiot) before the clutch ring gives and falls apart. This in turn toasts your wheel bearing on the left side at least, destroys the gear drive hub, and grinds off the teeth on the drive ring.

Make double sure you meshed the teeth on the ring with the hub correctly! Or you'll be replacing wheel bearings & the hub, like I am right now.
-Evan

Good little nugget there... Thanks.

Pat, this seems like a candidate for the files section, no?

[fadingfastsd]

Sure! Glad to help, hope I save somebody the trouble and frustration I've had. It's really common sense, and anybody who takes their time and looks closely at it while reassembling shouldn't have much problem.
Of course, I was in a rush and overlooked it, so if i did it, I'm sure others have too.

[bigbore2]

Thanx for the reply Fading--I bought this bike like this and have not been riding it at all. Hopefully its not too late. So your saying someone had the front wheel off and and did not assemble it correctly and that is how the misalignment happens?

[Pat Conlon]

Yeppers Dan,  I merged Evan's post into the speedo death howl file....thanks Evan!

http://www.fjowners.com/index.php?topic=5718.msg49881#msg49881