Its Whining !!!

Brand new 2002 550....Motor has been apart by experts twice, the one in my Supermoto bike....the noise, sounds like a supercharger on a big block car engine....I absolutely trust the last man to touch the engine, his work is brilliant, even he hasn't heard such a noise...(thats why the question) the engine apparently is very tight....the engine now starts very easy, pulls very hard and seems to pull even harder the longer she has been run.....I was wondering If anyone else has experienced this noise before and how long does it last.......??

your solution(I hope)

Hi Brian,

It's a well known problem that a mismatched sprague gear can make it sound like a jet. There were some bikes shipped from the factory with early and late halves put together, and they do not work together. They make the noise that you speak of.

Hope this helps,
json

Is there any chance you put an estart on this 550?
How much metal is in the oil?

json beat me to it. The sprag gear mismatch is for estart motors.

Was your counterbalancer ever updated?

I am at work now and don't have my reference material handy but you may have a gear mismatch between the counterbalancer and counterbalancer driven gear. The change/update occured late in 02.

Can you pinpoint where the noise is comming from?

Can you get a stethoscope?

noise sounds like its coming from the left hand side of the motor.......right under where the exhaust passes by....the motor had the starter pulled and then tried again with no change.....

Latest and greatest bearings were put in with the newest generation of rockers and also the counter balancer was replaced....

What ever the motor needed for updates I did it including carb.....i spent some doe to make sure all is ok.......

I will stick a hose to the motor and get more detailed.........

Saturday late afternoon and sunday I ran the bike like I stole it, ran three tanks of fuel through the bike and she ran like a top........

What Json was suggesting makes total sense to me.....

Is this thing gonna blow up on me or am I doing damage... :?:

The fact that the counterbalancer was updated causes concern. You obviously had the early single bearing counterbalancer and were updated to the double row. Can you find out if the driven gear was replaced concurrently? Along with the driven gear there are a few more pieces that were changed/updated also. Refer to the 01-03 workshop manual for the exact parts that were updated. It was mentioned here that there is a updated counterbalancer that will mesh with the early style gear. I have not been able to verify a part number for this. If this is the problem and you do get a hold of the this elusive part number please give it to us.

So three different counterbalancers may be available.

If the sprag was faulty I believe the noise would only occur during starter engagement as it is the only time it spins (I think).

I have only heard one berg whine like you are describing, it was my 2000 501.

I had a cracked right side case, at the swing arm pivot. My dealer welded it up which caused the case to warp, so he had it surfaced. This removed enough material to cause the transmission main shaft bearings to be preloaded axially, something the tech did not detect upon reassembly.

Eighteen hours later, the bike started to make the whining noise, which by the time I got back to my Van, was really BAD.

The ribbon ball retainer on the Transmission main shaft bearing (clutch side) had failed. The noise was the mismatch in the clutch basket gear/crankshaft gear allowed by the bearing failing.

VERY EXPENSIVE for me to repair! Pieces of the bearing ball retainer were ground up and went through the motor because a large chunk wedged under the reed valve and allowed the trash to get into the bottom end etc. etc. Fortunately, the cylinder cleaned up.

piston kit
connecting rod kit
all engine and transmission bearings
gasket set
valve guides and valves
oil pump
reed valve
cam chain
cam sprocket

I had to relieve the spline on the main shaft to allow the 2nd Gearwheel to fit further onto the main shaft to make up for the material they had removed from my right side transmission case.

In your case, it could be a similar situation, but I doubt it. It is probably gear noise in the secondary shaft gear/balancergear interface, that will gradually wear in. I would drop the oil each ride and check for magnetic particles in the oil. Do a sweep on the floor of the transmission with a piece of a magnet on a rod for chips. If I had done this I might have saved myself a lot $ in parts.

I now do ALL of my own work except for things I cannot do myself, and then I rely upon Dale Lineaweaver's expertise.

Regards,

Joe

Back to the starter. The FC550 did not come with a starter. It sounds like you have mismatched sprag componants. Removing the starter will not change the noise unless you remove the sprag componants as well.

Berger:

Does the sprag spin when the starter is not engaged?

berger said:

Back to the starter. The FC550 did not come with a starter. It sounds like you have mismatched sprag componants. Removing the starter will not change the noise unless you remove the sprag componants as well.

Click to expand...

Its an FE550....E-Start and 6 speed......
The noise was there prior to the engine work......

All the time as far as I know. It is basically a one way clutch.

I just noticed that it is an 05 FE550 when it was originally posted as an 02 FC550. This may put an end to my theory, although I think I would remove the sprag and try it anyways.
There also may have been a bulletin on that bike as well involving the sprag.

It would clearly be easier to pull the sprag and rule that out first.

sprague

tut's engine in Moab whined constantly. He was going to replace the sprague(the general consensus was that the sprague was the problem), but I don't know if it was done yet or not.

At the top of your first post, it says brand new 2002, is this not the case?

thanks,
json

Yuuup the engine is a new 2002.......

Did it whine from day one?

So...it's a 2002 FC550 motor that has been modified to estart. Is that correct? If it has been modified, do you have the part numbers for internal starter parts that are installed?

Hmmmm....I was under the impression it came with e-start...I'm assuming now thats not the case....I'm gonna get ahold of the original dealer.....

BrianSM said:

berger said:

Back to the starter. The FC550 did not come with a starter. It sounds like you have mismatched sprag componants. Removing the starter will not change the noise unless you remove the sprag componants as well.

Click to expand...

Its an FE550....E-Start and 6 speed......
The noise was there prior to the engine work......

Click to expand...

Fe 550 right?

I have a headache.

Re: sprague

schwim said:

tut's engine in Moab whined constantly. He was going to replace the sprague..........json

Click to expand...

i replaced the gears and then whine went away but then the brainwashed 'ride red' guys had nothing to moan about. i put the old ones back in and now they are happy.
i'm not sure but i think i just made a joke. i have made one or two a while ago [ i think] but its been quite a while.
i never replaced the gears but i need to.
tuts :devil:

i don't usually like to point out the spelling of things but seeing that brian is whining all the time i thought i'd mention it.

only the thread starter can go back in and correctly spell this one-right?

sorry but you know-it is the TITLE after all!!!

regards

Taffy