normal valve tick, exhaust leak, or valve too loose? 550 ltd

Here is a video of my 550 idling. Now, the idle isn't the best yet, (got a pilot issue on #2)

But, you can hear the tick - is this normal, an exhaust leak, or is one adjusted
maybe a little loose? I did just adjust my valves - they are all in spec,
but I know a couple of them are on the very loose end of spec (had to based
on the shims I had)


edit - standby - video loading issues

ok, heres the video. Also, 82 550, 8k miles, warmed up, good compression, stock everything.

apbling wrote: ok, heres the video. Also, 82 550, 8k miles, warmed up, good compression, stock everything.

It's always hard to tell where the ticking sound is coming from by watching a video, If you say your valves are within spec, I'd be leaning towards the exhaust leak, when is the last time you changed your motor oil ? & have you checked the oil level ?
Pete

Oil is about 1 mo old, rotella T, good level. It's coming from exhaust cam/header area.

Did you check to see if all your exhaust nuts are tight ? you might just have to replace your copper exhaust gaskets
Pete

Yes I did. I didn't give any more details in my first post because I didn't want to biased the opinions but I did just have my exhaust off to weld a leak up and although I did use new gaskets I had a heck of a time getting everything to mount up nice. I eventually got it though.

See, I thought I didn't hear this before when using a different set of carbs so I thought maybe it was related to my poor firing on #2 at idle. I think it personally sounds like a valve tick. I've only had 1 exhaust leak before and it was very obvious.

Does this sound "bad" to you?

If it's a potential exhaust leak at one of the flanges, these are my ghetto yet result producing methods I've used in the past. (the easier less invovled way) have the bike running, light up a cig (or have a friend do it) and let your smoke kinda linger at each flange. Look for the disturbance when/if it happens. Or you can use a shoe lace or kite string, anything that'll move with relatively easy with a small gush of air. Of course try to do this in your garage with none of mother natures wind throwing you off. Another fast way but it's gotta be done when the pipes are cold, soapy soapy water. Spray each flange a whole lot, like dripping bubbles, then fire her up, look for bubbles blowing. Make sure to rinse it after wards.



ed

Soap bubble trick works good by using a bottle of those cheap soap blowing bubbles for kids... but do it with the engine cold, no spark plugs installed and hold the throttle wide open with the gas selector valve off if possible.....all so it will not start and never get warm.
Have someone else do the cold cranking... it will not take but a few seconds to show blow by.

Hey - i just tackled a similar sound. After checking valve clearances, and realizing they were in spec, I decided to pull my exhaust apart and check it out. Keep in mind... my tick was over by Cyl 1/2... wasnt sure where exactly because there was no puff that I could feel... I could only hear it and at high RPMs it drowned out by the sound of the engine.

It is easy to pull your header off, just keep in mind that the crush gaskets should not be reused. Also - in my instance, My bike's PO used flanges from another bike with factory collars and 2 crush copper gaskets in each cyl.

Z1 sells two different style gaskets, Normal kawi copper crush, and Suzuki exhaust gaskets that are thicker. Due to my PO's shoddy attempt of installing this, I had to double up gaskets to make it right, and i had to use 1 thick and 1 thin per cyl.

I am not saying that my set up is "right" but I think right is = no leak.

Make sure you order yourself enough gaskets, they are cheap and always good to have in your tool box. And even if you pull apart to inspect, putting it back together should mean new gaskets...

Thanks guys. I happen to have a 2 year old that is more than willing to loan Pa his bubbles for this purpose. I have a stethscope thingy too and still cannot actually pinpoint the sound. When I got the parts bike it was blatantly obvious it was leaking - crack crack crack! when i first started it. I found #2's header about 1/4" away from the head. A whack with a dead blow hammer and it seated ok. What I'll likely do is order some more exhaust gaskets and just replace them, after doing the bubbles trick.

My only question is about the bubbles and doing it with the bike only turning over (not running), will the exhaust air still come out with enough oomph to cause the leak to occur? What I'm getting at is when the bike is actually running, would the exhaust gases come out with more pressure/speed than when it's just turning over? And if its a small leak, would it maybe not leak then?

I did not do the bubble trick on mine. And I could not feel any puffs of air come out.

If you feel that your header was 1/4 inch off of the seat and you were able to pound it in.... something is not right. I would order gaskets, and get more than you need... when you take it apart, you will see how the collars mount up. The only way it would separate from the head would be that their is not enough gasket material between the pipe and head.

Grnole - sorry, when I said it was 1/4" out I should have explained more - I owned an 82 550 for years. I recently picked up an 81 barn find that I planned on stealing stuff off of for my 82. The header on the 81 was 1/4" off on #2 - they had welded some old harley slip on mufflers on because I was told the stock ones rusted out, so I'm guessing they took the system off, welded the other pipes on (yes, it looks terrible) then re-installed, poorly. I did just enough to the 81 barn find to get it running before I took any parts off of it for my 82 daily rider. Thats when I found the leak.