Hydraulic Tappets - Sanity Check.

Thorcusmodee · Jul 5, 2018

Hi Folks, got another project now - Trophy 900 with a very noisy top end and a stuck clutch. Clutch I expect to be a repeat of the trident and therefore easy. I have whipped the cam cover off to have a look, it all looks good, no heavy scoring, nothing obviously broken. I do however notice the oil is incredibly thin and contaminated with something - possibly water. There is no oil in the cooling system, I did manage to get it started this morning, it runs ok apart from this very loud tappety noise. Do these tend to fail or be fussy with what oil is used? I know on the old Rover K series they used to fail, just wondering if these bikes are known for it? All input gratefully accepted PS the bottom end sounds fine, the cam chain looks good, compression seems ok, don't want to do much more without an oil change first as it really doesn't look like the current stuff is doing much good.

capt · Jul 5, 2018

These are very robust engines indeed ! There are many examples with hundreds of thousands of miles on them ! My 94 trident had 161,000 klms on the clock when I sold it in 2001 I saw it again in 2012 @ a rally it had 34,000 showing so @ least 234,000 new owner said speedo died with 18,000 bought new one so all 000's added 34,000 , so 250++ and motor still as strong as new ! I'd say checks on oil and cooling system would be warranted, replace engine oil and run it till hot or at least decently warm , switch it off let it cool them checks for cross contamination in oils and coolant , let it sit for a day or two and check again, the water contamination in the engine oil could be condensation from sitting unused in very cold and damp conditions !

Cheers capt

crispey · Jul 5, 2018

If it has the self adjusting cam chain when that doesn’t get oil it can stick and cause a lot of noise, probably chainy rather than cammy but you never know