Had a bracket there for my D&D pipe. It would work itself loose all the damn time no matter what I did. First time I noticed it was a few thousand miles after the dealer installed it, so it wasn't just me. I ended up just leaving it off.
The tapping is not from the top, I hunted all over with a stethoscope probe. The oil is from a leaky oil cooler fitting, since replaced, but a wash didn't get in there. That's a breather hose, but its never spit a drop. I got lucky, I guess. Thought about just leaving the bracket off, but I figured Harley wouldn't have spent the money to put it there if ya didn't need it.
This thing gets ridden nearly every day, so it ain't in show bike condition by any means.
The tapping is not from the top, I hunted all over with a stethoscope probe. The oil is from a leaky oil cooler fitting, since replaced, but a wash didn't get in there. That's a breather hose, but its never spit a drop. I got lucky, I guess. Thought about just leaving the bracket off, but I figured Harley wouldn't have spent the money to put it there if ya didn't need it.
This thing gets ridden nearly every day, so it ain't in show bike condition by any means.
Does the sound change when you apply the rear brake? Had a rubber muffler mount (under the bag) that dried out or something and it made a helluva racket.
As far as leaving the bracket off, I ran the bike for about 30k more miles with no issue. I just figured that, as others have said, the rubber mounted engine jumping around in the frame must really put a lot of stress on that mount. By removing it from the equation, less stress on the pipe as well. But probably more stress elsewhere like the exhaust studs, which could be bad.
Set out to change my clutch cable. A curse upon the house of whoever designed the thing that you have to pull the exhaust to get to the clutch cover. Found this when the heat shields came off:
THe clamp was broken, too. Guess I'll dig out the buzz box and burn a stick on the bracket ( I disconnected the ECM and the battery). Wants a new clamp, though. Wouldn't trust a weld on that.
The break in the clamp was half rusty and half clean, so there was a flaw in the metal there. Got no idea how the bracket got broken.
Maybe the tapping I've been trying to trace will go away when all that's fixed.
`Looks like something was vibrating/rubbing against the housing. Maybe your pipes, and also rubbing against the cable?
12-31-2017, 08:59 AM
