Newbie to the zephyr life

[blake12345]

Hi there,

I’ve recently got my license and got myself a zephyr 550. I’m used to building cars and I’m assuming the bike engine is not too different to a car engine.

Apart from the primary chain noise are these engines inheriantly noisey? I think have a shim clearance noise but I feel like these a few other noises but can’t pinpoint where they are coming from

I’ve just replaced the oil with 10w-40 4 stroke oil and new oil filter and check the spark plugs and gaps and all is good. It idles fine and accelerates fine but the noises are just always there.

Should I be worried and go get it looked at or just live with it and get the shins done as soon as I can?

[Freddy]

Hi there,

I’ve recently got my license and got myself a zephyr 550. I’m used to building cars and I’m assuming the bike engine is not too different to a car engine.

Apart from the primary chain noise are these engines inheriantly noisey? I think have a shim clearance noise but I feel like these a few other noises but can’t pinpoint where they are coming from

I’ve just replaced the oil with 10w-40 4 stroke oil and new oil filter and check the spark plugs and gaps and all is good. It idles fine and accelerates fine but the noises are just always there.

Should I be worried and go get it looked at or just live with it and get the shins done as soon as I can?

Hi Blake,
Welcome!

I have a 750 not a 550 but believe the fundamentals when it comes to noise are pretty similar.

Are the engines inherently noisy? Ask yourself this, think they could have sold the bike new with the engine sounding like that? That noise has developed since then, and the principal noise is a loose cam chain. It allows the cams to pause and then 'flick' over (due to the cam lobe and valve spring tension), rather than roll nicely. It's that flip/flop of the cams and chain that is most of the noise. It's not the chain banging the case as many imagine.

Should you get someone to look at it. No, you'll end up with an expensive repair with someone wanting to replace the cam chain. The chain is perfectly fine, nothing wrong with it. It is a flawed automatic cam chain tensioner that is the problem.

Now if you want to test that, I can tell you how to easily do it on a 750 as 'resetting' the automatic tensioner is dead easy. Reset it and if the majority of the noise disappears there is your proof. It's not a fix because the noise will return quick enough when the tensioner jams up again. Don't know how you easily reset a 550 tensioner as they are a different design. But try this, park the bike on an uphill slope, engine stopped, in top gear, and clutch the bike backward in order to get the engine to rotate backward. Believe it or not, that's exactly how you tension the cam chain on a new Z900 or Z1000 Kawasaki. True it in the service manual. OK they don't specify a hill, just rotate the engine backward. I've just added how to do that easily.

Solution to all of this, easy and inexpensive. Fit a manual cam chain tensioner.

P.S. and for those who think there is nothing wrong with the OEM tensioners, I too resisted the idea for a long while. But it is futile, they are defective. Easily tested, just reset it and if the noise quietens down, there is your proof.

[blake12345]

Hi Freddy,

Yeh I can’t imagine many people would buy something that was making ticking and clunking noises brand new...
I’ve got a manual tensioner installed so I might adjust that and see how I go!
The noises don’t worry me I just thought I’d double check just in case.

[hugojose]

......air cooled engines let out more noises than a liquid cooled ones, as they don't have the liquid jacket to muffle them...so some is normal,.....I do own a 750, (still with the automatic cam chain tensioner), and it does sound agricultural when cold, but once it warms up smoothes out.

......how many kilometers (miles) are on this bike????

[blake12345]

Mine doesn't get too much quieter when it gets hot. It kind of has all the same noises idling hot or cold...

Its done about 86000kms.

[Freddy]

Hi Freddy,

Yeh I can’t imagine many people would buy something that was making ticking and clunking noises brand new...
I’ve got a manual tensioner installed so I might adjust that and see how I go!
The noises don’t worry me I just thought I’d double check just in case.

You'll always hear the valves rattle a little on an air cooled engine. That high pitched 'tick' is usually pretty easy to separate out from the much more worrying 'nuts and bolts in a cement mixer' sound of the loose cam chain. That 'nuts and bolts' cam chain noise can be virtually totally eliminated by a correctly set tensioner. It only exits because the chain is loose, permitting the cams to not roll in a consistent speed.

You can actually replicate the sound slowly turning the engine over manually with the valve cover removed, and observing and listening as the cams flop over.

The problem with It was so bad on my bike before I fitted a manual tensioner that I found it distressing to start the bike without my ear plugs fitted. I'm not joking. With a properly tensioned cam chain, and some of the other sources addressed, the engine is now surprising quite. Even when first started and dead cold.

[hugojose]

Mine doesn't get too much quieter when it gets hot. It kind of has all the same noises idling hot or cold...

Its done about 86000kms.

With a bike this old there are other things to check. I presume you don't know what kind of maintenance, if any, had got.

....if it's got a manual chain tensioners, then it should be very easy with your fingers, an a couple of wrenches, to check if it is taking up the slack...a matter of minutes actually

I'd clean carbs, check float levels, and do a synchronizing (balancing).

...I'd check valve clearances as soon as possible...manual says every 9,000 km, which is rather exaggerated, but likely you don't know if has ever been done at all....unlike cars, there is no automatic hydraulics valve adjusters here.

[Freddy]

You'll find conflicting methodologies on the internet on how to correctly tension a manual chain tensioner. These are basically:

1. With the engine running and up to temperature, screw in the tensioner till the noise stops, lock it up, job done.

2. With the engine off, turn in the adjuster with finger pressure while slowly rotating the engine (spark plugs out, rear wheel elevated, top gear, bump the rear wheel in the direction of rotation is the easiest method) till it takes you fell it take up the slack. Basically you can't easily turn it any more with just finger pressure, and its not so tight its easily undone by finger pressure. Then back it out 1/4 turn, holding it in that position with a spanner, do up the lock nut. Job done.

I reckon a manual tensioner should be a direct replacement for an automatic tensioner. An automatic tensioner if working correctly removes all slack from the cam chain plus maintains the pressure of the tensioner spring on the back chain run. It should move forward to always maintain zero slack plus spring tension. So clearly I favor method (2) which is pretty close to the same. The 'do it up till the noise stops' method seems so hit and miss to me.

[andye]

A lot of the noise can be from the primary chain. As long as the rattling quietens down to something reasonable when the engines warm, I wouldn't worry too much,
Synching the carbs helps. Mines the same as hugojose's noisy when cold, settles down once warm.
A manual cam chain tensioner may help, the auto one doesn't have a good reputation.
But generally the engines are tough.

[Greenzephyr]

I have an 1100 but I did have a 550 one thing also to with the engine idling pull in the clutch and see if any noise goes away this is the primary chain noise.