Valve ticking on S10 anyone?

[ggeorge11]

Have to say I have been through it and I am over it. I just got used to the sound, I only have about 5K on mine now, but the sound is part of the bike. My job has prevented me from doing any seriously long rides since August. I took mine out for the first time in a while for a long ride, and it seemed to not bother me as much.

It appears that engine noise follows me no matter what.... I bought a 2003 Corvette with 33K on the clock in November. It was warm when I bought it, but now that we have cooled down some, I started the car to pull it out of the garage and guess what? Tick tick tick ??? So tons of call later, and to several LS1 experts
I find out it is typical! The engine is aluminum block, with short skirt pistons, When the car is started up in cold weather, it will make some noises until the oil heats up to about 100 degrees! ANother great ride and engine noise?????? REALLY??? ::010:: Oh well I will deal with it!
The engine has a fail rate of around 5% considering the number of LS1 engines......

 

[joneil]

On two occasions, I have had very loud noise at start up. I can only assume it was valve noise. This is beyond the normal noises this beast makes. The second time it happened, I got a low oil light about a mile into the ride. The level seemed fine when I checked it. I bought the Y.E.S. two days later.

 

[talonboy]

I too noticed the valve tick when I purchased the bike. I figured I would just check the valve clearance soon. But after reading this, it seems like it is normal.

 

[ggeorge11]

It can be un-nerving, I came off of a 2004 FJR, and a 06 FZ1, those engines were dead quiet. It took some serious time to get over it. It helped a lot hearing a couple of other Tenere engines running, they all sounded like mine, so I just keep riding and loving it.

 

[snakebitten]

On two occasions, I have had very loud noise at start up. I can only assume it was valve noise. This is beyond the normal noises this beast makes. The second time it happened, I got a low oil light about a mile into the ride. The level seemed fine when I checked it. I bought the Y.E.S. two days later.

That has been described as the cam chain tensioner. It lasts for a couple of seconds until oil pressure relieves it.

I too have gotten a momentary oil light after one of these occurrences. And since the oil light is oil "level" significant, rather than oil "pressure", I finished the warm up cycle (140 degrees minimum) and then let the bike sit for a few minutes to check the oil level window. It was found to be at the very bottom of the glass. (Recent oil change at dealer. ARGhhhhhh)

Topped off the oil to the top of the window. No longer got the cam chain tensioner rattle on startup. (Except a much slighter version of it after bike sat a couple of days)

 

[joneil]

Thanks Snake. At least I'm not the only one. Still glad I have the peace of mind with YES.

 

[Siseneg]

When I tipped mine over, and it took some 10 minutes to get it upright again, I let it sit for a while but when I started it there was a lot of clatter until the oil pressure built back up through the engine. It runs noisy normally, but after a tip it'll clatter even better.

 

[EricV]

By the way!
Have someone else noticed that their right exhaust from cylinder 2 is more blue than from cyl.1. whitch would mean that cyl. 2 does get a little less fuel than cylinder. 1?
On my bike it´s just so, and on the 10000km service the mechanic adjusted the air screv a little so the right cylinder now getting exatly the same fuel but this changes does only make any diffrense on idle he said.
I tried to set the co value a little higher (+10) on cyl 2. (read abut it in another tread on this forum) but didn´t noticed any diffrense on how fast the exhaust getting red when tried to run the engine on some rpm.

It's possible you are over thinking it a bit. Might just be the difference in air flow to the pipes. It doesn't always take much to get different colors. I wouldn't stress about it.

 

[RED CAT]

Also heard a rumor the tranny has straight cut gears for strength but not nessarily for quietness. Think overall that Hondas seem to have the quietest engines. My GS, KTM, and Triumph weren't particularly quiet either. Actually the S10 is quieter. ::001::

 

[reverend12]

The S-10 sounds like a cross between a ducati and a tractor... ::025::

 

[tc9988]

Also heard a rumor the tranny has straight cut gears for strength but not nessarily for quietness. Think overall that Hondas seem to have the quietest engines. My GS, KTM, and Triumph weren't particularly quiet either. Actually the S10 is quieter. ::001::

straight cut and mine are extremely noisy. At least in drowns out the valve clatter ::025::

 

[Dallara]

Also heard a rumor the tranny has straight cut gears for strength but not nessarily for quietness. Think overall that Hondas seem to have the quietest engines. My GS, KTM, and Triumph weren't particularly quiet either. Actually the S10 is quieter. ::001::

Literally all motorcycles with a manual transmission manufactured in the world today have straight-cut gears. It a design characteristic of a constant-mesh, dog-engagement gearbox like motorcycles have. All your gear ratio sets internally in the gearbox will be straight-cut.

Many bikes have helical-cut *PRIMARY* gears (the ones that transmit power from the crankshaft to the gearbox mainshaft) to tone down noise some, but they have their own set of problems (like a ton of side-thrust). Still others use a "split-gear" arrangement, where one of the two primary gears (usually the driven one, like the one on the clutch basket on the transmission main shaft) is actually sawed in half from on edge, then the gear halves are *sprung* to each other so their teeth are slightly out-of-phase axially. This makes sure there is no backlash (literally slack) in the mating of the primary gears, cutting down on noise but without any side-thrust on the crankshaft or transmission mainshaft.

But the real point here is that straight-cut gears are the norm in motorcycle gearboxes, not the exception. And it's not done for strength, but because it's necessary for the proper operation of the gearbox. A straight-cut gear is not necessarily stronger than a helical-cut gear. There is no side-thrust with them, which is a distinct design advantage.

Just FYI...

Dallara


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[RED CAT]

Hey, thanks for the technical lesson on transmissions. Always good to hear from someone who has better knowledge. All good stuff. ::001::

 

[tc9988]

OK Dallara. Why do you think the transmission in my 2001 R1150GS virtually silent compared to my S10 ?

 

[Dallara]

OK Dallara. Why do you think the transmission in my 2001 R1150GS virtually silent compared to my S10 ?

There could be a myriad of reasons, but the most likely is that you may be confusing "transmission" noise with "primary" drive noise.

The BMW doesn't have a a gear-driven primary like your Yamaha. In fact, it has no primary gear at all, as the clutch mounts on the end the crankshaft in much the same way as it does in a car. Then output shaft on the clutch is the mainshaft of the transmission, driving then the gears on the countershaft.

OTOH, the Super Tenere has nothing more than a small primary gear on the end of the crankshaft. This gear drives the driven gear on the back of the clutch basket, and hence the mainshaft of the transmission, which in turn, through the various ratios in the 'box drives the countershaft.

Most people confuse "transmission" noise with what is actually "primary" noise. The primary drive noise on the Super Tenere is caused by the whirring of the straight-cut (and non-split drive) primary gears, and this noise can be considerable to someone who is used to an engine/gearbox set-up where no primary gear drive exists - like on you BMW.

I hope this helps, but if not some simple Google searching of engines and gearboxes disassembled will quickly let you see the fundamental differences I'm talking about. Look, this is all pretty basic and simple "Motorcycle Mechanics 101" stuff, and these days folks are lucky. There is tons and tons of resources out there on the internet that you can access to learn about these simple bits and pieces of motorcycling. Back when I was learning the wrenching trade, decades ago, we had nothing but books, service manuals, etc.... That and I torn down a lot of different engines over the years. These days you can sometimes learn things in literally minutes that took us months to grasp "back in the day."

Dallara





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[scott123007]

Dallara,
Your background with motorcycle racing and mechanical insight mirrors mine. I'm beginning to think we are brothers from a different mother. LOL
Scott

 

[behindbars]

OK Dallara. Why do you think the transmission in my 2001 R1150GS virtually silent compared to my S10 ?

Don't know about the 1150 but the older 1100 gearbox had a helical cut 5th gear specifically to reduce noise at cruising speed.

Too bad BMW didn't use all helical cut gears back then- my old RT trans. sounded like it was going to explode in the first four gears.

Steve

 

[Xdriver]

straight cut and mine are extremely noisy. At least in drowns out the valve clatter ::025::

Those gears are noisy. I alway know when I'm in 5th gear by the whine it makes. That with ear plugs.

 

[Tremor38]

Haha. This bike sounds like a room full of clocks....no worries!

 

[Dallara]

Don't know about the 1150 but the older 1100 gearbox had a helical cut 5th gear specifically to reduce noise at cruising speed.

Too bad BMW didn't use all helical cut gears back then- my old RT trans. sounded like it was going to explode in the first four gears.

Steve

Oh, you can have helical-cut gears in a constant-mesh manual transmission, but when you do then size, weight, parts count, and complexity all go up considerably, each big enemies in the motorcycle world. Why do they go up? Because suddenly you don't have the engagement dogs on the gears themselves but instead "dog rings" that the shift forks slide on the transmission shafts rather than those forks simply sliding the gears themselves. Any of the gears that slide on the shafts have to be straight-cut for the 'box to operate properly. And let's not forget the other bug-a-boo of helical-cut gears - side-thrust. This side-thrust can put huge loads on bearing races, etc. unless certain engineering solutions are taken, and again, this adds weight, size, and often complexity and parts count.

Again, this is pretty simple stuff, and there's *TONS* of info out there on the web. Here's a short video that may help all this come into focus...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq11CusULlk

And then here's an article that'll show you how the parts count goes up if you suddenly decide to go helical-cut and use dog rings...

http://www.gadgetjq.com/transmission.htm

I found those in just a few seconds, so it is easy to find good info. Mind you, though, it will take more than just a few minutes to really get a grasp on all the different forces and trade-offs in gearbox design and implementation. Just remember that the manufacturers have to try and build them the gearboxes not just strong, but light and small, too, and to shift with the minimal effort possible... They also want to keep the parts count down and make them simple to repair.

Hope this helps.

Dallara



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