Good advice! Another great day ahead...

 

Hiya GK.
Looks like a great buy there. Definite wheel bearing replace, coz as my ol' school buddy and me were on a trip in France and Germany last year the front wheel bearings packed up ....middle of no where, and the solenoid decided not to work once. And this year my red white blue one the R/R packed up. Just how it goes, old bike.....things happen....keep on top of them you'll sure get to know the bike.
I sold the red and black one, but the rwb one is gorgeous.

 

Nice bike, I have a pretty much mint 91 in the garage with 24000 miles. I noticed the front fender is Black. Has it been replaced or painted?

 

Thanks guys, yes I agree bull, the 90 (And maybe 88 & 89 too?) has the best color pattern. The rwb colors look great. Reidy, the front fender and mirrors were indeed painted black. For what reason I don't know but it definitely doesn't look very good! Might have to change it back...

 

The most common reason is that they got damaged and the PO couldn't be bothered trying to get a paint match.

Much prefer the factory look.

 

A little bummed the PO('s) didn't take very good care of her. But I have all winter to deal with the blemishes and superglued panels

 

Ok, it's getting warmer thank goodness. My Wing is in FL, going to ride it back up to Maine within the next month via I10 through AL, KY, TN, etc. Never been through that part of the country before. In the meantime I've been getting some riding time on the 'ol CBR when the days are warm enough (50F is fine for me lol!)

I just came to realize where my rattle is coming from - I feel like an idiot but the bike is quiet as hell without it. Obviously the cold start idle clanks are normal but this what has been bothering me all along. Whenever I revved it there was a nasty noise I could never pinpoint, sounded like a bad bearing or loose bolt or whatever. I'm sitting there for a few minutes warming her up and after do the light revs - That noise is killing me. So I put my hand down on the upper triple tree pivot and the noise stops. It was the upper dust cover floating around making all the racket! I twist it a quarter turn and it fetches up, hasn't moved since.

I checked the steering nut last fall (and also again), and it's tight. Not torque tight but it ain't loose enough to let a component rattle. If someone thinks I should retorque it, come with a good reason because that requires taking the assembly off, repacking, retorque and recheck. It's tight, turns freely and I doubt I need to do that.

So I'm positive the top end is absolute sweet bread, and glad the 5K RPM rattle was the stupid dust cover. Quiet, powerful, smooth, awesome. I do have to take care of the pilot circuit problem with the carbs and will at least adjust the valves when I get those things off, but nothing will go further than that this summer anyway. I'm just going to enjoy that son of a gun!

Has anyone ever had that bearing dust cover rattle before, I don't get it.

 

Gronkfries (not "Groceries" - you know what I mean) Just fallen upon your 05-02-2018 posting. I have an annoying rattle coming from somewhere on the front of my CBR1000FM. It sounds like plastic rather than metal (good news), but I just can't trace it. The dust cover you talk about needing 1/4 of a turn - is it one of the three plastic discs on top of the steering head/forks? Not quite sure whether it's those you're talking about. If so, unfortunately for me, I've tried that with no success. I've started to wonder whether my "rattle" could be linked to a misfire and split second loss of power sometimes I drive over a bump/hole in the road. That's pretty irritating too but I can't figure out what that could be either!!!

 

My rattle was a metal dust ring just under the top triple tree - I have no idea why it had free play, the nut is tight. So turning it slightly snugged it up. One idea I have for you is maybe your kill switch or sidestand switch could be loose or malfunctioning - when you hit a bump it might activate one of them. I can only imagine the problem you have is annoying and I hope someone can help you get it solved.

 

Gronkfries, thanks for the clarification on the "dust ring". I've seen a lot of postings on this and other forums (or should that be fora?) about side stand and kill switches causing all sorts of problems but hadn't really made the link with my own intermittent problem but I'll check those out now you've mentioned it (along with the dust ring). Thanks.