Today is not my day. Here's the scenario. I am in the middle of no-where behind a dump truck, traffic finall allows me to pass. So I do, in fourth gear at about 45-50 mph. I roll into the throttle, not banging it but I did get on it. up to 70 shortly after shifting to 5th and passing he truck. About a mile to two miles later, I hear a noise like something is rattling off. But it is not, long story short, I've got a knocking type sound coming from the front jug. When this happened, I took it easy gettin back to civilization.Once I got to town, doing town speeds it went away. Stop for awhile for a buisness meeting, got back on it and after getting on a freeway the sound came back after I got up to around 55-60. It started to go down as I was stuck in traffic moving at no more than 15 mph. I finally made it toa place where I could pull over and waitied about 15 min. Fired it up and the noise was still there. Now, the noise keeps rythm with the engine rpms. I have an S&S carb on the bike, an 05 lowrider, and was suspecting I was running rich. So I am led to believe I have detonation. What do you all think? I pulled the plugs and there was no metal flaking that I could see. They did show the engine to be a little on the rich side which is why I had it to the lean side. Just today! So now I am worried. I didn't have/notice any hp loss. I hope this help diagnos this problem. Many thanks in advance.

 

cheap or watery gas? check there first, put some 93 in it and run it out

 

I hope it is not the engine!!! With that said, do not think I a making fun of your situation in any way, shape or form.......................

Make sure nothing is loose anywhere on the bike........ kick (lightly) your exhaust pipes and mufflers.
If you have a luggage rack, etc make sure it is not loose...... Check your air cleaner cover.

I am saying this because, after running my bike pretty hard one night (like I almost always do), I came to a stop light and it sounded as though I had certainly bent a pushrod or something, and then I thought a rod bearing. Took it rather easy, after checking all around the engine (fluids, etc), no codes, bike ran fine....... just this terrible sickening noise like I had blown her up.

Get up the road a bit and stopped to eat at a favorite truckstop I frequent. This time when I got off the bike, I realized the screw on my Motherwell fender rack had vibrated loose and fallen out at this point. Turns out the rack mount was vibrating against the fender and radiating through the frame. It was rattling in perfect rythem with the engine RPMs and sounded like whatever was rattling was in the engine, not on the back fender.
Talk about almost sh!ttin my pants over nothing.[sm=sigh.gif]

I hope yours is a similar problem. I found that anyhting loose enough to rattle on the bike seems to radiate through the engine, especially the exhaust.
Your baffles may be loose and rattling around inside the pipes, etc.

Hope all goes well, and it isn't serious.[sm=biker2.gif]Good luck

DougJ

 

Sounds like something is loose.

MAC

 

Well I appreciate everyones thoughts. I will go through everything tonight or tomm. night and make sure everything is bolted down. As soon as I find out something I will let you all know. Thanks again to everyone.

 

Sorry but I forgot to mention that when I checked the plugs last night, there is some oil on where the plug seals with the port, not on the tip itself, just there where the washer lays on the jug. Any thoughts on that?

 

no....first thing I thought is a bent pushrod....good luck.

~Joe

 

Well, as promised heres what I know. I did check everything to ensure all nuts and bolts weren't loose. I found the front exhaust nuts were a little loose, so I ripped them off. The crush gaskett did not look good. So I am going to reinstall a new one. WhatI found in there was not good, caked on carbon that flaked off. So as I suspeceted, rich running. Have smaller jets on order so we will see what happens. Thanks again for all your alls advice and suggestions.

 

Sounds like the exhaust was loose and making your noise.......... Hope that all it was.

DougJ