Jez
Junior Member
My musical bike. It sounds like a bagful of spanners. I should explain that there are three separate problems going on, each with their own distinctive sound. And I'm wondering if anyone else will recognise the tune.
First, clonk. The front end seems loose somehow. Every little bump there's an alarming clonking banging noise from the front headset. If I'm hard on the front brake I can feel a bit of play through the bars as I go over bumps. Also the bike feels a bit off balance, like when I'm going along on a straight smooth road there's the faintest little shimmy like it isn't really sitting straight. Got new tyres on it which were balanced at the shop, so I doubt it's them. Is this the dreaded steering head bearing failure?
Rattle. Over about 7000rpm, in any gear, there's a metallic rattle from the left hand side. It gets louder the higher the revs go. It's like a nail rolling round in a biscuit tin, or maybe like a bad case of engine pinking - but I doubt it's that. Bike's had a service in the last month, oil change, new plugs etc, and the mechanic said he couldn't hear anything unusual. Well it don't sound right to me.
Most alarming is the surging/bogging down problem. I think we've narrowed it down to the old TPS , and it's booked in for a new one next week under the recall. But it's so random - went for a 2 hour ride today, some fast overtakes, some crawling in traffic, and it was fine. Then the last 10 minutes coming home, it started surging, then slowing down, then hiccuping and farting around, and finally it stalled altogether, on a roundabout of all places. Managed to restart with no trouble and then it purred all the way home, like it was fresh out the showroom. Devious little thing.
I'm going to see what the dealer says when it goes in next week, but would welcome a second opinion here. If he says the valves need lapping or whatever, I want to make sure that they really do. It's possible that all these things are very simple to fix, but at the moment I'm not happy riding it because it just feels like it's sick.
First, clonk. The front end seems loose somehow. Every little bump there's an alarming clonking banging noise from the front headset. If I'm hard on the front brake I can feel a bit of play through the bars as I go over bumps. Also the bike feels a bit off balance, like when I'm going along on a straight smooth road there's the faintest little shimmy like it isn't really sitting straight. Got new tyres on it which were balanced at the shop, so I doubt it's them. Is this the dreaded steering head bearing failure?
Rattle. Over about 7000rpm, in any gear, there's a metallic rattle from the left hand side. It gets louder the higher the revs go. It's like a nail rolling round in a biscuit tin, or maybe like a bad case of engine pinking - but I doubt it's that. Bike's had a service in the last month, oil change, new plugs etc, and the mechanic said he couldn't hear anything unusual. Well it don't sound right to me.
Most alarming is the surging/bogging down problem. I think we've narrowed it down to the old TPS , and it's booked in for a new one next week under the recall. But it's so random - went for a 2 hour ride today, some fast overtakes, some crawling in traffic, and it was fine. Then the last 10 minutes coming home, it started surging, then slowing down, then hiccuping and farting around, and finally it stalled altogether, on a roundabout of all places. Managed to restart with no trouble and then it purred all the way home, like it was fresh out the showroom. Devious little thing.
I'm going to see what the dealer says when it goes in next week, but would welcome a second opinion here. If he says the valves need lapping or whatever, I want to make sure that they really do. It's possible that all these things are very simple to fix, but at the moment I'm not happy riding it because it just feels like it's sick.
