(I think that applies to most of us on here, Paw. Necessity is a mother......)

 

No problem. Glad to be able to offer some assistance and hope it works! lol ( I hear ya on the mechanically inclined and not a mechanic, but as Jeff mentioned, necessity pops up which demands a learning curve.)

The leak down tester may not be needed in your case, but it is one of those tools that you will use over and over again during your internal combustion engine maintenance regime.

 

Decided to put the engine back together to see if the cam chain tensioner that I removed cleaned and re-installed, fixed the knocking noise. The noise is still there so I removed all the parts that I put back on, and now so far I drained the oil and radiator fluid, removed the fairings, radiator and tubes, headers, exhaust, frame pieces, oil radiator, all cables, some of the electrical components attached to the engine. I'm gonna separate the top end of the engine next, then Seperate the crank case from the block tomorrow to see if I can find the problem. Could be a needle in a hay stack!

 

wow, you are gung ho with this and you still would prefer to go that far without some basic diagnostic tools? A couple of preferred tools were listed above. Have you tried your ear on screwdriver (stethoscope) to the case to maybe hear where that noise is coming from?

 

I like to dive into things, I guess I'm either gluten for punishment or I enjoy a challenge lol. I tried the screwdriver trick, I heard the noise from all different locations of the engine. I stripped her down to the cylinders tonight, I'm about 90% sure I found the problem but would like ur guys opinion; once I removed the cylinder block and raised all the cylinders to the same height, I tried to pull them up and down. They were smooth and didn't have any slop.... Except for cylinder 3. It had slop in it when I pulled up and pushed down, so I think it's the rod between the cylinder head and crank shaft, what's ur thoughts?

 

Mmmmmm, tough to say without "feeling" the same thing myself. What's the history on the bike? How many miles on the engine? Ever been rebuilt? Burning any oil (thinking rings, etc.) Why cylinder 3? Any odd carbon pattern on the top of piston (versus the others?) Something doesn't make sense.

 

The milage says about 26k but that could be it's second trip around lol. No sure about the rebuild. I never noticed any white smoke from the pipe so I'm not sure if oils getting beyond the cylinder seals. All cylinders have an equal amount of carbon build up on them. The only dif that I noticed was that the spark plug housing where the spark plug wire attaches to the sp had alot of rust around it, but that was on top the engine so I'm not sure if theres a link between that and the connection arm.

 

You may find it beneficial to have your local shop take a peek at this, and especially for an engine rebuild. Troubleshooting and repairs over the internet is extremely difficult and at best 90% accurate although everyone tries to be accurate.

 

I finally was able to separate the crank case after a local motorcycle dealer was able to fight with my fly wheel to remove it. I found the problem and it ended up being some bad bearing inserts! I ordered a whole set of new ones. I examined the journals and definitly examined the journal which had the nasty bearing inserts which was within tolerance and not out of round. Just waiting for the parts to arrive so I can put this back together. My brother and u are going to record the rebuild and run the vid quickly so people can see the bike come alive quickly. Were gonna post it on my brothers web site.