240 mile ride to Lake Cachuma

Sooo, I try to post pics but get 'too many links' error message..

But had a nice 240+ mile ride to local lake. For us, a lake with water is news!

The KZ ran great, it was a cool day, so overheating not a problem.

But at idle, she sounds horrible. Clunk Clunk Clunk. But anything above 1500 rpm, smooth and quiet. 

Cam chain adjustment? Running an APE manual unit. I've not adjusted one, so don't know what it should 'sound' like.

My ride report here ..

 

Well, it certainly shouldn't "CLUNK" Anything that sounds like a bag of hammers needs to be investigated until it's fully understood. Clunk, clunk, clunk leads to BANG, then silence. Then an excessive amount of words I can't write on the site.
Pull the valve cover and have a good look at the tension roller down in the middle of the cylinder block. Not easy to see but i would be looking for missing roller rubber. 40 year old tensioner rollers really should be replaced no matter how good they look. How many times have we seen someone report a damaged tensioner roller and then bent valves.
Manual tensioners are not for everybody. I would say that they should be checked every 50 hours running time until you get a sense of how often they should be checked. I've seen some engines needing checked every 20 hours and some looking good at 200 hours. You'll know by how much you need to adjust in the adjuster. My advice would be to adjust out the slack while running at idle then turn in the adjuster bolt one flat (1/6th of a turn in) and lock it up. The chain needs to be tight enough to keep the tensioner rolling and not allow the chain to slide over the tensioner roller.

So let's hope you've caught it in time. How many times have we heard that someone was running a bike with strange noises and kept running it trying to "figure out " the problem until BANG/ silence. And then the famous line "Oh, I shouldn't have done that"".
Good luck and keep us in the loop please.
KB

Kawboy wrote:

Well, it certainly shouldn't "CLUNK" Anything that sounds like a bag of hammers needs to be investigated until it's fully understood. Clunk, clunk, clunk leads to BANG, then silence. Then an excessive amount of words I can't write on the site.

Pull the valve cover and have a good look at the tension roller down in the middle of the cylinder block. Not easy to see but i would be looking for missing roller rubber. 40 year old tensioner rollers really should be replaced no matter how good they look. How many times have we seen someone report a damaged tensioner roller and then bent valves.
All upper end components were replaced when restored, 2012. Current mileage on new engine is 3,801 miles. 

Manual tensioners are not for everybody. I would say that they should be checked every 50 hours running time until you get a sense of how often they should be checked. I've seen some engines needing checked every 20 hours and some looking good at 200 hours. You'll know by how much you need to adjust in the adjuster. My advice would be to adjust out the slack while running at idle then turn in the adjuster bolt one flat (1/6th of a turn in) and lock it up. The chain needs to be tight enough to keep the tensioner rolling and not allow the chain to slide over the tensioner roller.
 That's my dilemma. How tight is too tight? Is it safe to back off the APE tensioner until clanking is heard then tighten back up until clanking sound goes away?

So let's hope you've caught it in time. How many times have we heard that someone was running a bike with strange noises and kept running it trying to "figure out " the problem until BANG/ silence. And then the famous line "Oh, I shouldn't have done that"".
I think I'll pull the valve cover as you wisely advised, and check the cam chain with my fat arthritic digits.. Put an eyeball on it, try to establish a baseline of 'feel' for how tight the APE adjustment should feel at the bolt head.

Another info point is this noise is NOT clutch noise, as the 'Song Remains the Same' with clutch engaged or disengaged.

Good luck and keep us in the loop please.

Sincere Thanks for your help and advice!
KB

A little video of me and Quacker. It's not great... but no one EVER takes film of me... LOL.

Some pretty funky video editing going on there Don.Buddy running through the gears while turning around on the road??? LMAO. !!

Kawboy wrote:

Some pretty funky video editing going on there Don.Buddy running through the gears while turning around on the road??? LMAO. !!

Hey, you gotta admit that was one phast turn! 
(Stole some KZ 1300 'sound' video from uTube, used it! )