[us385south]

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I have a persistent ticking in the left valve cover. By persistent I mean that I have tried multiple treatments of Seafoam. I have also tightened the exhaust mainfold bolts to try to rule out an exhaust leak. It doesn't seem serious... but I am sort of compulsive about such things. It ain't right for this engine to tick like this!

Advice anyone?

 

[DrAce51]

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Can youget vid W/sound and post it ? We / I might be able to help with the diagnoses ?

 

[us385south]

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Never posted vids before! Raining pretty good now... will try in the morning...

 

[tpwood]

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I'm not sure about the left valve cover noise, but when I picked up my 1500 the PO told me it had a noise also, I can't remember what it actually sounded like, but it drove me nuts too. I found a bolt in the exhaust cross over area, looked like a drain bolt of something (look under your bike), but it has a lock washer on it and that was loose causing exhaust to blow by the bolt creating the noise and WALLAH!! tighten the bolt and the noise was fixed. It's been a few years since I even looked at the bolt, maybe! Good Luck

 

[Rudy]

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My guesses would include a small leak in the exhaust at the header as mentioned above or a noisy hydraulic lifter.

Neither one is going to be serious but the lifter will require some wrenching, gaskets, torque wrench, etc.

 

[us385south]

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Thanks Rudy and all... It's pretty rainy here right now so can't get the bike out to look and see if it has that bolt mentioned. I have already tightened the header bolts as much as I dare to without breaking one off! Back when I lived in GA and NC, I owned a series of small British cars. Many of them had a round donut shaped gasket that went between the header and the exhaust port. Do the GL's have anything like that? Perhaps that's the problem... maybe it's burned out and leaking? I'm off on a rabbit trail to pull up exploded assembly diagrams...

 

[us385south]

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Ah-ha! I see they do have a little gasket that fits between the cylinder head and the exhaust header. $2.95 ea. @ Bikebandit.com

Could that be the problem?

 

[Jerryk959]

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us385south wrote:

I'm off on a rabbit trail to pull up exploded assembly diagrams.

Good luck!