I recently purchased an 02 954rr and love the bike but have had a few problems. First off the front end seems a bit loose, when im not moving or on smooth pavement its fine but when i hit bumps it makes a sort of clapping noise or somehting feels like its coming from the steering stem or something anyone know what to do about that?

Also the engine makes a soft clicking noise when the bike it ideling, and ideal what that is and what to do about it as well?

Thanks for all your help

 

First off welcome. I will take the easy one first, the clicking. Answer, learn to ignore it, all our bikes do it, they have a loud valve train. The hard one, get your head bearings checked, they may be worn or loose. If your not a tech that could cost ya a few bucks but not world ending. But just for good measure, check your front fender, brake calipers and make sure all is tight and not vibrating up the forks.

 

Also to answer your questions. I have tried numerous blends of oils to "reduce" the sound of the valve train. I am now running 10w40-Golden spectro semi-synthetic and it seems to be working better than amsoil, belray, motorex, honda Gn4.

Second question. Look at your forks and see if there is oil residue around the stancheon tubes. If there is, this may be an indication that one or both fork seals are blown and you have lost enough oil to cause the bike to have too little dampening and spring preload.

If it's not this, theck check for wheel being properly balanaced, rotors not being warped, caliper bolts torqued to spec, cupped tire, head bearings/wheel bearings. Checking all your bolts for torque spec will eliminate alot of the guess work.

 

Good call Illushun, didnt think of low fork oil