Last night I went for a short ride. After about 15 minutes of easy cruising, nothing over 7K, it suddenly started makingthis ticking noise. I've had electrical problems, so I killed the engine and restarted it. No problems there. This ticking would speed up as RPM increased. Being around cars for so long, the first thing I thought was "stuck lifter". I headed home very carefully. After a total of about 2 minutes of taking it very easy, a few stop signs and slow neighborhood turns later, IT WENT AWAY. The bike ran just as good as before, but I still went right home.

Any ideas? I keep thinking "valve train" but I'm just not sure. It never developed a miss or anything. Just "ticked" and "clicked" (like a lifter in trouble) and fixed itself. Odd!

 

Hmm thats weird, the only thing i could think of from my car experience is that especially after an engine warms up, a ticking or knocking noise like that could be a connecting rod nock, its often not heard/not as easily heard when the engine is cold because the oil is thicker.

I'm assuming you would probably know weather or not the sound was from the connecting rod if you understand the lifters and valve train, but i thought i would give that info just incase...lets hope its not what i said though!

 

I hadn't thought connecting rod, because whenever I've heard one knocking, the only way to end it is a rebuild pretty much. This noise just went completely away on it's own.

I guess I could go ride again and just stay close to home and see if it appears again.

 

yeah, I definately doubt it would be a rod if the noise went away, I wonder if it was just something that was rattling on something else? i dont know. Let me know if you figure anything out!

 

These motors do not have lifters.Theseare not your grandad's old pickup trucks.

Cam chain tensioner I bet.Is the noise coming from the bottom,top or side of the motor?If it were a conrod,the ticking would only be more pronounced as the rpm's went up.

 

I know there's no lifters. It just sounds like when I've heard lifters before on a V8. BTW, not a single person in my family has a truck. My father-in-law has one, but at least it's bad ***.

The noise only lasted about 2 minutes, so I could not get a good listen as to where it was coming from. As RPM went up, so did the ticking sound (just like a dead lifter, or a con rod), that's why I was worried. Worried about con rod, not lifter!! For those couple of minutes I thought the engine crapped itself, all for no reason.

Now that the sound is gone, I guess I'll just roll the dice, ride, and hope it doesn't happen again.