Several weeks back my bike started making sort of a knocking/clacking noise at idle. Seems to go away when the rpm's rise. I can also feel this knocking vibrating the bike. I had already decided it was coming from the right side of the engine (if sitting on bike), and felt it was coming from rear head on that side. The bike fell over at the gas station a couple days ago, onto the right side. I picked it up, (saying some choice words), and got on to ride home and fix the busted blinker. When I did, it was like the clutch was not disengaging completely, bike still rolled when clutch was in. Only did this for a little bit. Well today I realized that if when I pull the clutch in the sound and the "feel" goes away.
Any insight on this? Could this be the springs? I had also had some slipping under hard acceleration but bled the lines and that has seemed to go away. Bike has about 10k miles.
This could be a number of things which we may only be able to diagnose by process of elimination. However, considering that the characteristics change when the clutch is disengaged, I', gonna suspect it's something with the clutch or transmission and consider the simplest thing. What type of oil ar you using? Is it rated for motorcycles? Synthetic?
I'm not the expert, on oil, although we have several on the forum who are very knowledgeable...
I used 10w40 with this latest change, BUT, the change before this was with 10w30 synthetic and the noise started just after that. It almost completely went away with the change back to the regular 10w40 and at that point I suspected the oil, but then it returned. I just used Pennzoil. I will get "motorcycle rated" oil and change again ASAP and see what happens.
I really appreciate your help with this!