Will be taking a pass-through tomorrow morning. Thanks for the advice!

 

The way to tell if it is a tensioner gone south is to listen closely to where it comes from, if your hearing is fair to middling you should be able to kneel down and listen to tell if it is from the exhaust guard or the cam drive.

If you want to know for sure, get a mechanic's stethoscope or long handle screwdriver. Put the tip on the tensioner, the cam cover in around the valves, around the clutch and listen (screwdriver handle against ear). If the noise is coming from the tensioner/cam drive that's the tensioner failed and chain slap as the tensioner gets pushed in leaving chain slack. If from the cam cover, valves need checked. This method is accurate enough you can tell which valve may be loose if it was valve ticking.

Don't know if there might be a Harbor Freight there, but a stethoscope is under $10 if there is. Not a bad thing to have hanging around when you need it, but not something you will use frequently.

 

Oh man. Will try the screwdriver first. Thanks for the Tip.

 

A quick heat shield rattle detector tool is a boot pressed to the heat shield.
I did it while riding, when my heat shield broke a weld tab.
A touch of the boot against the heat shield stopped the rattle and then I knew what it was and carried on until the sound stopped altogether. Only because it fell off, after rattling the other welded tabs off too! Somewhere on the Garden State Parkway is a KLX 250S heat shield...I'm guessing mid-state.

 

Hah! As they say, "Well *there's* your problem!"...



Put it back without the front tab...

 

 

A lot of good information on the 06 at the beginning of this forum where it all started

 

I have a stock exhaust with only like 1000 miles on it hanging in my garage, you can have it for $200 LOL?

 

Wonder how much it would cost to ship parcel-post to Kauai
(96746)

 

I just guestimated on the parcel size and weight, but it looks like USPS Ground is around $90.00 give or take $20.00 Yikes