the dreaded chirp

[Snarley Bill]

i think i have figured out the source of the chirp in the primary gears on yamahas. this gets tecnical. my rstd had the chirp about as bad as it gets. both my v-star 1100 and my 1300 in particular, have a terrible amount of primary gear noise. i always attributed it to the straight cut gears which are the noisyest gear pattern there is. my wing has straight cut primary gears and they are totally quiet. my 1600 nomad has straight cut gears and has a barely audible hum. you have to consentrate to hear it. i always figured gearlash either to loose or to tight was the main cause. this will make a difference in the noise level, but i think the real cause is the curvature on the face of the gear teeth. yamaha has picked a pitch that just happens to make noise. the only real fix in my opinion is to go to their engineers and have them try different pitches on the surface of the gear teeth untill they hit the right combo. or go to honda and kawa. to see what pitch they use. just my opinion. i think the clutch basket change is just a bandaid. it tightens the clearance up to a sweet spot that may or may not last depending on tooth wear. think about this the tranny gears don't sound off, and they are all straight cut.

[SilvrT]

Makes sense to me ... but I doubt we'd get anywhere by "pitching" that to anyone at Yamaha...

[Condor]

Just wondering.... Years ago I bought a brand new VW Rabbit. It started using oil almost from the git-go. When I took it in the VW dealer service dept said it needed a heavier oil, and that did stop it til right after it went out of warantee.. I knew I'd been snookered but by then there wasn't much I could do about it. So I just kept adding oil and changing the filter. Never did another oil change. Drove it for 150,000 miles that way.

Anyway fast forward about 6 or 7 years and I receive a notice in the mail that VW America was being sued by the FTC because VW knew the problem existed but instructed the dealers to lie to the owners about what the problem really was, and not fix it. Which was a faulty valve angle in the head design. The FTC won their case and VW had to recall every car and make it right. In my case instead of fixing the problem I just cashed out and VW wrote me a check for $1800. About half of what it would cost to have a dealer R&R a rebuilt engine.

So.... my point is, perhaps Yamaha is doing the same thing, and maybe it's going to take more than getting an 'I' basket, but rather a class action to get resolve???