Intermittent clicking/grinding sound coming from front wheel.

[Guest]

Hey everyone,

I noticed recently that there's a sound coming from my front wheel that I can't quite put my finger on. It started out as an intermittent clicking that I could hear when i was rolling while idling. The sound would come at a certain point in each rotation of the wheel. It seemed to come and go. Today it took on a grinding tone, which has me concerned about bearing problems. Upon inspection I can't find anything dragging on the wheel.

Any thoughts on what this could be? If bearings, how expensive/complicated are those to fix?

I recently had my front tire changed, and I think that the problem was present before that but my memory is failing me. Would it be possible for a mechanic to mess up bearings just by removing the wheel and changing the tire?

Thanks.

[tom203]

Disconnect speedo cable at front wheel and see if noise disappears. Did you remount the tire on bike yourself?

[1980GS1000E]

Sounds like wheel bearings to me. Remove the wheel to inspect. If there is any roughness, they are shot. To remove, pry up the seals, dislodge the spacer a bit and hammer them out using a rod and hammer if you don't have access to a press. You can hit on the inner race to remove since you will be replacing them anyway. Replacing isn't hard, make sure to press in on the outer race only when installing and get new seals. Make sure to grease them adequately, a lot of people assume they are already greased. You can use a large socket and hammer to install, just be careful not to hit the inner race and make sure they are all the way in.

[Brendan W]

Sounds like bearings to me too. Any mess up is possible. Before tearing into the wheel I would call the guys who had it off first. Maybe they did screw up and will come clean, maybe they didn't. Either way you get a diagnosis from someone actually seeing the wheel.

[tatu]

Does the speedo work ok? Was the axle pulled out and the speedo drive removed? When it was replaced were the dogs engaged carefully?

[mrbill5491]

I had the same problem here recently. It was a brake pad that had wore down to the backing plate. On my bike it was the inside pad on the left side. Just the one pad, all the rest still had over half the pad yet.

[azr]

Does the speedo work ok? Was the axle pulled out and the speedo drive removed? When it was replaced were the dogs engaged carefully?

I bet you anything it's the dogs bent on the speedo drive. Can be fixed if they're not broken. If they are broken should be easy enough to find a replacement on here. Good opportunity to rebuild and regrease the speedo unit.

[tom203]

I had the same problem here recently. It was a brake pad that had wore down to the backing plate. On my bike it was the inside pad on the left side. Just the one pad, all the rest still had over half the pad yet.

Of course, you found out why this was happenning?
A while back, my front wheel made unpleasant noises, took wheel off, pull pads out, found no problem. Two weeks later the speedo cable broke and noise stopped.

[klylor10]

I bet you anything it's the dogs bent on the speedo drive. Can be fixed if they're not broken. If they are broken should be easy enough to find a replacement on here. Good opportunity to rebuild and regrease the speedo unit.

Bingo! I took it to a couple of old mechanics. One claimed that the calipers weren't retracting fully, the other that the mechanic who changed my tires had put the wheel on incorrectly. After one of them put my wheel back on the "correct" way, the problem persisted.

100 miles later, my speedometer stopped working. I took it back to the mechanic who had initially changed my tires because I thought he may have had it apart. He claimed that he didn't, but inspected it anyway. As it turned out, the drive was frozen, and one of the dogs was really bent. Through some struck of sheer luck (which I seem to having in spades on this trip) he had one on hand that he had just rebuilt.". Upon replacing the speedo drive the grinding sound has gone away.

i hope this is insightful to someone in the future who may have this sort of issue. Thanks for the advice, everyone!

[1948man]

Sounds like wheel bearings to me. Remove the wheel to inspect. If there is any roughness, they are shot. To remove, pry up the seals, dislodge the spacer a bit and hammer them out using a rod and hammer if you don't have access to a press. You can hit on the inner race to remove since you will be replacing them anyway. Replacing isn't hard, make sure to press in on the outer race only when installing and get new seals. Make sure to grease them adequately, a lot of people assume they are already greased. You can use a large socket and hammer to install, just be careful not to hit the inner race and make sure they are all the way in.

What kind of grease? Just any kind of wheel bearing grease, or are there some kinds that might not be compatible with the grease that comes in the new ones?

[villac]

Copied this from my newbie thread, it seemed to fit here
New to motorcycles, working on a 1980 450GS
Had a buzz/whine from front end after changing tire
fixed it by lubing speedo cable
I used WD-40, but I have gotten advice that Lithium grease would work better/cause less damage

- villac

Copied post:

Try lubing the cable, and if that doesn't fix it lube the speedo by turning it upside down and shooting some spray grease between the threaded part that the outer cable screws onto, and the part inside it that spins with the cable. I use spray Lithium Grease but probably anything would do.

One or both of those will usually fix a buzzing or jumpy speedo or tach.

Yes, thank you, that did it!

We had already messed around with the wheel-end of the speedo cable: making sure nothing had fallen out, that the angle entered the hub correctly, etc. and all seemed OK. In fact, a trip around the block with the cable disconnected gave no noise, so it helped pin the blame on the speedo (not something scraping between brake pad and disc.)

I found a ton of threads with a "speedometer noise" search here, so I followed advice and detached the cable from the back of the speedo (it seems the 1980 GS has a detachable cable, but no lubrication port: sounds better than the years that don't have the detachable cable). We found so many recommendations for lubricant, including the spray lithium grease you use: 3 in 1, axle grease, motor oil, silicone. We also had triflo my son uses for RC cars, but in the end I settled on a can of WD-40 for the advantage of that little straw and the aerosol propellant. We were able to spray down the cable housing while spinning the wheel, and then spray up against gravity into the back of the speedometer itself. Of note, the oil lifted a brown residue out of both ends - probably a little coating of time and travel. With the cable reconnected, speedometer worked without noise at speed.

The exposed tip of the cable had an odd look: it was dark brown, was a square cross-section, seemed to have a texture of hard plastic, and had fine grooves in it like serrations or tooling. I figure all of this could be due to being 35 years old and somehow rubbing without proper lubrication, but since it works, I don't care how it looks! If the noise recurs or the cable breaks, we will deal with hunting down a replacement on ebay, etc.

I'm glad I found a good explanation and info here.