Over the past few weeks I have been aware of a rattling noise coming from the front of my bike, a Bonneville T120. The noise only occurred as I rode over bumps. The noise sounded like something light weight was loose. No matter how hard I looked, I could not see anything was obviously loose. I thought I had checked everything several times as a tried to find the source of the rattles. Apart from the rattles, there were no other symptoms. The handling appeared normal, braking was normal and I checked and nothing appeared to be out of place. The noise was starting to become a pain. A few days ago I bought a handlebar bar mount for my Beeline. In the process of fitting it I noticed that the top yoke left hand pinch bolt was missing. I then checked the right hand bolt and that was loose. I was less than finger tight. This means that the top yoke was not doing much at all. I have now replaced the two M8 x 25 mm bolts, torqued them up and used a medium strength locking compound to set them in. I’ve also put witness (or torque) marks on to indicate if they have moved. I use unwanted (pink) nail varnish for the marks; pink is just not my colour. The rattling has now gone. The handling is a little sharper but nothing else has changed. I’m also less likely to fall off due to a failure of the entire front end of the bike. The takeaway for the newbies like me is when you hear “little” rattles it might be that BIG things are loose. In my case I think it was the headlamp support shroud pinging off the front fork stanchions. So when you give your bike its regular check for roadworthiness, don’t miss these items like I must have.
well sounds like you fixed it .I never need to touch bolts on my honda, but you need to check the bolts every now and again on s triumph
I have just checked my fork yoke bolts and they were all OK, but what I did find was the two rearmost screws holding the mudguard to its bracket were literally just about to fall off !! The bike is new and only just had its 1st service. I have just fitted some TEC progressive springs in the forks and this has made the constant crashing noise "almost" disappear. The ride is way better. Just waiting for my Hagon 2810's to be delivered to sort the back end out.
Hi Trevor, Did you torque down the pinch bolts, if so what setting did you use? I'm assuming they would be the same as my Thruxton 1200s. My last bike, a Ducati, got a warning on the MOT that the front brake was fluctuating. I rode it for another few weeks and then saw that I was missing an axle pinch bolt and all the others were only finger tight, the whole front wheel could have come off. The bike had just had the Ohlins front forks serviced and the bolts were never tightened!
Finding your axle pinch bolts loose/missing is equally an underpants changing find. With regard to the fork clamp bolts, they were torqued to 24 Nm as suggested in the Haynes Manual. This manual suggests a lower setting of 20 Nm for the Thruxton, Thruxton R and Speed Twin.
The upper yoke clamp bolts are 24Nm and the lower ones are 45 Nm according to my manual. The upper ones are M8 and the lower ones are M10.
Thanks, but I've got 20 and 24nm there! I'd have thought the Thruxton and T120 would be the same as they have the same forks, but I guess they do have different yokes as the T120 has handlebars and the Thruxton has clip ons, but then the Speed Twin also has handlebars. I think I'm OCD, I'm sure 22nm will be fine. Cheers
I’m not so sure this was down to the factory. A fly screen has a been fitted (previous owner) and the top yoke may have been removed to facilitate its installation. A close inspection of the bike will show that virtually every other bolt has witness marks. I’m going to guess that whoever was responsible was distracted (maybe an important call from Microsoft’s Technical Support Centre in Calcutta or Bangalore) just before torquing the bolts up. The take-aways from this are 1. When working on critical components ensure they are double checked and 2. Have a personal inspection routine that ensures you check every critical bolt (there’s not that many).
I have always marked bolts on my bikes (copper is the shade I like, I mean use)... I started doing it on my Harleys as bolts and things tend to rattle loose but now I just like to do it on all critical fastenings. It makes checking all your bolts take seconds.
