Need help w/strange noise 81 GS1100EX

[retrex]

Hi all, I have put my 81 GS1100EX back on the road after 9+ yrs of non use. The bike has only 39k mostly highway miles. It has the original clutch. Needless to say I had to either clean or rebuild many of the mechanical and/or electrical systems. The bike run very well except for one new noise that wasn't there the last time it was on the road. When coming to a stop, just before you reach 0 mph, clutch pulled in, there is a ka-klunk, klunk klunk noise. It sounds like it eminates from low in the engine. Right under my foot pegs it seems. I am the original owner so I know this bike and all the noises that it normally makes. This is something new and different. As I stated earlier the engine runs very strong and it shifts flawlessly. I have never missed a shift, felt the clutch slip or found a false neutral on this machine. Nothing has change here. The thing that keeps popping into my mind is that this sounds like a transmission problem. Gears not meshing quite right. Can anyone out here help me out with diagnosing this problem? Thanks :?

[rphillips]

Kinks in the drive chain will ka-klunk a lot, & much more noticable at slow speeds.

[retrex]

Thanks for input.

Thanks rphillips, you may be right. I just adjusted the chain and even though I have done this job many times I think that I might have messed it up this time. My eyesight is not what it used to be and I think that I may have misjudged the allignment marks on the swingarm. Also I think I have the chain too tight which would probably make things worse. I won't be able to verify until this weekend but at least I have a clue what to look at now. Thanks

[Jethro]

When my 81 1100 was on the road, I just wore earplugs. If I didn't, I was in constant panic the bike was about to grenade!

Seriously though, I had a really strange noise last year. Like a major grinding from the drivetrain. Thanks to the earplugs I ignored it. Turned out the chain was to tight, and slightly out of alignment. That chewed up the sprockets real bad and in about 600 miles my brand new chain and sprocket were toast.

I now keep the chain tight enough so that it just doesn't slap against the swingarm on the top run of chain- seems to be perfect, and I end up with about 1.5 inches of slack on the bottom run of chain.

[retrex]

Follow up on unkown noise for 81 GS1100EX

I looked at the chain this weekend and found out a couple of things. The first is that the chain was too way too tight. It had been so long since I adjusted my chain I had forgotten that when I cinch up the axle bolt that it takes a bit of slack out of the chain. Is this a quirk of just my GS11 or does this happen to others? Second, I removed the chain case cover to observe what was happending. With the bike up on center stand and engine turning the back wheel I could see the chain become kinked every so often. The curious thing about it is that the chain is tracking straight and true. I then took the chain off the drive sprocket and noted that when in gear the sprocket has some freedom of rotation before being locked by the gears. Maybe about 2 or 3 teeth by in either direction about a stationary point on the engine case. Is this normal? This freedom of motion seemed to be the real cause of the noise. When the rear wheel rotation matches and passes primary drive rotation, it is causing the gears to clunk together. The good news is that the noise does vanish with a chain that is not over tightened. I rode it this wekend without hearing that Ka-Klunk noise. Any thoughts on the slack in the primary gear drive would be apreciated.