Hitchcocks Forum

B5 EFI very noisy valve gear. My dealer says they all sound like that Sir, but what is the opinion of the team. Hydraulic tappets should remove and gap without risking over tightening and causing burnt valve seats. The bike only has 1,900km, so can it be the rockers or something I have not thought of? Any suggestions?

Cheers Trevor

Difficult to assess without actually hearing it. I'd try to listen to another bike of the same model, and see how it compares with yours.

Good suggestion, but it is a bit like looking for hens' teeth. I have not seen another in Switzerland in the last three months, will go back to the dealer in Germany when next service is due and ask him to investigate further. He has sold others in Switzerland and I might get some contacts from him. Cheers Trevor

Hydraulic tappets can occasionally make a rattle before the oil pressure comes up but they should be silent the rest of the time.

Simon, I understand the pressure issue with hydraulic tappets, but the noise is continuous, sounds like it is all coming from the top end, so either the basic adjustment is incorrect or the hydraulic tappets are not functioning correctly. Finally I suspect some free play in the rockers, that cannot be adjusted by the the tappets.
"Noisy tappets are happy tappets", so said, should be a thing of the past IMHO with a newly designed engine. Cheers Trevor

I found with time and miles (with my G5)the tappets become quieter.
All part of the running in proccess I suppose.

Buy another bike

John J - you are on an enfield site, we don't buy new bikes on a whim, we soldier on with what we have.

Sounds familiar. My 2010 Electra efi started clattering at around 7500 miles. It started suddenly, mid ride, and was loud. Sounded like valve train, but was LOUD! I drained the oil out and found some large metal lumps - a mangled bit and half a washer or spacer, both almost 1cm across, also a lot of metal filings. I rode the bike lightly a few times, and it ran fine - the noise only started when warmed up. But I couldn't live with the clattering - something had to be wrong! Eventually Watsonian took it in & replaced the sprag! The racket continued so I made a bloody nuisance of myself until they took it back and re-built the engine under warranty. They never found anything specific to explain the racket! ?
The bike has done around 800 miles since the rebuild, carefully run-in again, and although quieter than it was, is still one of the noisiest Bullet engines around - old or new! One of these days I'll get round to stripping it down and finding out why.....
The bike runs fine so I'm just not worrying about it any more. But I only use it for local jaunts now.

And by the way Trevor - they DON'T all sound like that!