hitch in my giddy-up

Howdy! Noise from lower left rear. At full throttle, from a stop or 15/20 mph when the bike hits 35 mph there is a short, hard to describe noise. No noise when no full throttle. Is this a case for grabbing the front brake and revving her up, when stopped, of course. Thanks, Paul

This (Howling?) noise is something I've grappled with for years, although it was always during take off or crawling in traffic etc. I thought I'd figured it out when I kept finding dirty clutch shoes which I assumed was due to a mixture of different types of grease being used each time the clutch assembly was removed and grease was creeping into places it shouldn't be. When I decided to change the two bearings inside the pulley inner-half, I found this:



Bear in mind, this is at ambient temperature and it poured out like thick oil. Anyway, after a strip down, clean up, new bearings, proper grease used in the right quantities as per the FSM, and a rebuild, all was well for a long time.

A few weeks ago the howling started again but it was very mild, so, last week I took the clutch assembly off and found everything in order apart from slight glazing on the clutch shoes. I cleaned them up, gave the belt a little brushing to remove any dust, cleaned the pulleys and put it all back together.

To my horror, it is now howling rather harshly and is accompanied by a slight squeal. The squeal is probably the belt but the howling has got me mystified once again. I'm going to have another look this week but I can't imagine finding any wrong in there.

BTW, gustav, this type of problem is covered elsewhere on the forum so a search might help with your particular problem.

Yup, I've searched other threads. Kind of annoying, but I'm not really worried about it. I have a O.E.M. belt for when I reach 13,000 miles. Thanks, Paul

Ditto. It's a bit like an itch you can't scratch. Nothing wrong but just a bit irritating!

Hi folks.

Have you checked or tested the Swinging arm drive belt outer cover rear bearing?
I used a snub nose polishing wheel in a drill stuffed into the bearing inner once the case is off to run it up for noise.

Hope this helps.

Thanks JohnyC. It runs smoothly using a finger and there doesn't seem to be any movement, but I'll try your suggestion.