I've made a couple day trips to play around on some Forest Service roads and an ORV park, I'm fortunate to have some great places to get away within a couple hours in almost any direction. The bike has performed great (though I should say my only trail experience was on a 250 dirt bike and this bike is definitely NOT that) and so far my oil cooler mod has held up fine - no temps over 240 whether pulling a hill on the freeway or goofing around at slow speeds in the park. That said, we rarely get truly hot weather west of the Cascades and this week low-mid 70's was as high as it's been. So I'm thinking about making a run over to Yakima later this week or beginning of next as it's going to be pushing 100 over there (though if I do have a problem it's going to be a long day getting back over the pass...)
Side note - I was at the dealership the other day and happened to be checking out an R nine T. I guess I was thinking that the new boxers were all water cooled but dang if there wasn't a big old oil cooler hanging out in front just about right were I put mine. Got me thinking that if I end up needing more cooling muscle I could easily make that work, and I've already located one in fact...
But I digress... So today I pulled the bike out and power washed the mud off of it, and then started the engine to warm up the oil a little to do an oil change. Except for the wintertime I rarely use the throttle advance (or "choke") lever. It started fine, usually if it seems like it wants to bog down I just give it 1500 or so for a few seconds and it smooths out. This time when the RPM's dropped down a little something in the engine (I think) started making a dry, "scrape-y" kind of sound as it went around is the best way I can describe it. It almost sounds like a bad bottom end noise like a dry bearing, but when I goosed the throttle a little it went away. I let it bog again and the noise returned, goose the throttle and it went away. This happened once before (coincidentally after I washed it then too I think) and that time also it went away and ran normally so I'm thinking it can't have been anything catastrophic as it's run thousands of miles since without incident, although it sure sounded bad.
My only idea was maybe the timing chain tensioner but it doesn't seem like a sound that a loose chain would make. I have the update kit but when I had looked at it, it had the small (15mm) bolt head on the plug so I was thinking it may have already been done. I'm going to pull it apart anyway tomorrow and check. Just curious if anyone had experienced something similar or had any idea what it could be?
Side note - I was at the dealership the other day and happened to be checking out an R nine T. I guess I was thinking that the new boxers were all water cooled but dang if there wasn't a big old oil cooler hanging out in front just about right were I put mine. Got me thinking that if I end up needing more cooling muscle I could easily make that work, and I've already located one in fact...
But I digress... So today I pulled the bike out and power washed the mud off of it, and then started the engine to warm up the oil a little to do an oil change. Except for the wintertime I rarely use the throttle advance (or "choke") lever. It started fine, usually if it seems like it wants to bog down I just give it 1500 or so for a few seconds and it smooths out. This time when the RPM's dropped down a little something in the engine (I think) started making a dry, "scrape-y" kind of sound as it went around is the best way I can describe it. It almost sounds like a bad bottom end noise like a dry bearing, but when I goosed the throttle a little it went away. I let it bog again and the noise returned, goose the throttle and it went away. This happened once before (coincidentally after I washed it then too I think) and that time also it went away and ran normally so I'm thinking it can't have been anything catastrophic as it's run thousands of miles since without incident, although it sure sounded bad.
My only idea was maybe the timing chain tensioner but it doesn't seem like a sound that a loose chain would make. I have the update kit but when I had looked at it, it had the small (15mm) bolt head on the plug so I was thinking it may have already been done. I'm going to pull it apart anyway tomorrow and check. Just curious if anyone had experienced something similar or had any idea what it could be?
