Engine Rattle

[Bones]

The other morning I started the bike to warm it a bit while doing my helmet up like i do every day, and the missus commented that the engine sounded noisier than normal. I couldn't hear anything abnormal with the helmet on so just shrugged it off and went to work.

Next morning I started it with the helmet off and there was a definite rattle that wasn't there before, but it being a cool 4 degree morning thought it might be just the oil's a bit thick because when it was hot it didn't seem too bad. Thinking about it later I thought, no can't be the oil, been using the same stuff for years with no problem, so parked it up till I  could check it out.

Pulled the cam cover off and checked the clearances, and although one exhaust was/is a little bit tight the rest were within specs, so it had me buggered where the noise was coming from because it sounded like loose tappets to me.

Wiping the gasket face clean I bumped a bolt on no 3 cam bearing cover and noticed it was loose so checked the other 2 and all of them were loose, you could turn them with your fingers.



I thought Aha... found the problem, but how did they come loose in the first place because I've never had it apart, but do know that it had a new camchain and shims done about 40,000 km ago so maybe they weren't torqued up properly, who knows.

Checked the rest to make sure they were tight, but pretty confidant that was the cause of the noise, waiting on new gasket and bolt seals before I know for sure.

Something to keep in mind if strange noises appear.

                                                                              Tony.

[movenon]

Good catch. I am no expert but I just was in that area of my bike the TQ sequence is 2, 4 , 1 and then #3. TQ spec is 12Nm or 8.7 ft lbs.

If you remove the caps the #3's are removed first and TQ'ed on last. Those #3 caps are expensive to replace. Check the 10mm cam shaft sprocket bolts while there. That's about all I can add with my limited experience in the engine.

George

[roverfj1200]

Have a rattle in mine when cold that I never could identify. One day leant over and revved the bike to find it was one header vibrating in the collector box.. Had a bit of a tappet sound to it.


Cheers.

[Bones]

Fitted new gasket and bolt seals, started it up and lo and behold..... It started rattling again  W.T.F. Now I knew it couldn't be anything with the valve gear after tightening the cam bolts and checking the shims, so looked elsewhere. I had no 2 exhaust pipe out when I fitted the oil temp gauge a while ago so checked the flange nuts and guess what....they were loose.

I know they were tightened properly so not sure why they came loose, but nipped them up again, tried it and finally back to normal

I'm sure these bikes do little things like that now and again just to test you out.

                                                      Tony.