I've been working on my bike to fix a rattling sound and I replaced the clutch plates and I found that the compensator spring was shot so I replaced that too. I bought the new compensator spring from J & P Cycle and put it on the bike. This took care of all the issues with the clunking and shifting and rattle noise but now the bike has a noise that sounds a little different. When I come to a stop and pull the clutch in, I'm hearing a noise that sounds like two glass bottles rolling around and hitting each other. When the bike stops, the noise goes away. Any ideas out there? This is an '01 SuperGlide with almost 44,000 miles and is pretty much stock except for a stage one improvement. Opened pipes, rejetted carb and stage one air filter.

 

maybe its the gas in the tank

 

Did you forget about the six pack in your saddle bags? lol

Where are you hearing the noise come from? You were just inside of the primary, maybe your primary chain is loose?

Shut the bike off and roll it a ways to see if you hear the sounds without the motor running. That could eliminate a lot of situations.

 

The engine runs great without any misses and doesnt' have a hint of spark knock or dieseling. Everything in the primary case looked good and I haven't seen any unusual wear. The primary chain doesn't take a lot of adjustment to tighten to spec and I even like to go to the tight side of spec because I think it runs smoother that way. This glass bottle knock I hear isn't very loud and I'm pretty sure it's related to the engine because the sound is relative to engine speed. It really only does it when I go to stop and pull the clutch lever in. How forgiving is the adjustment on the clutch?

 

Did you check your basket bearing when you had the clutch apart?

 

I checked it when I put a new transmission shaft seal in the inner primary and had it all tore apart. I would think that if that bearing went bad, you would hear it all the time especially under a load.

 

Don't run the primary tight, run loose if anything.

Your noise sounds like the front pulley bolts are loose or have fallen out and are rattling around in the dish of the pulley.

 

OK it's going back up on the lift and I'm going through the primary drive and inspect every little bit of it. The clutch hub bearing, chain and sprockets. I wonder how much wear the compensator sprocket and slide cam can wear before the compensator spring can't really do it's job. I mean, the mating nub tips have some wear but I don't know how far they can wear before they need replacing.