Engine rattle

Hi guys, a couple of weeks ago and friend and I fitted a new rectifier and battery to my 99 curvey SV650. The day after I was plodding along to work when i started to hear a rattle from the bike, at first i put it down it being a screw we hadnt tightened on the tail fairing. As you can imagine we found out it wasnt this. It came to light that the rattle was coming from the front left of the engine which would suggest it was the cam chain tensioner being loose. So my friend and I tightened the cam chain ten, with no affect. I was pretty low on oil at this point which we re-filled with about a litre and a bit. So yesterday we took the front cover off the engine off to check the cam chains and to ensure the shims were all ok etc. They were all fine tight and in accordance with the Haynes manuel.

The rattle only appears when i accellerate and will disappear if i plod along at a steady speed. as soon as you give it any throttle it comes back. If you pull the clutch in it also disappears! over the last day or 2 it has also stated to sound like there are 2 rattles! 1 when you accellerate sounds like a vibrating rattle and now the 2nd noise is like a push bike noise when your not peddling. Can anyone shed some light??? or have any ideas??

Thanks

Not the chain is it? It's have to be pretty fubared to do this tho.....sure you've checked it just thought I'd start with the simple stuff first!

At what level is the engine oil at now (just so we're all clear, oil is measured with the bike upright and not on the stand. Might seem a trivial point, but some people have reportedly topped up oil with the bike on the sidestand. D'oh!)? My SV makes rattles and all sorts when the oil is about midway or below, it prefers to have oil in the top 3rd of the window.

As skidmarx has said, check your final drive chain too. Dry, old, flappy chains will make alot of noise.

Defo not the can chain we ran it around by hand when we had it open and no damage or probs.

Oil is all level with bike up-right

Originally Posted by mrhighlyrated

Defo not the can chain we ran it around by hand when we had it open and no damage or probs.

Sorry I meant the final drive chain to the back wheel! Sure your cam chain would be fine unless you've done some serious mileage.

inspecting a cam chain while turning the engine over a 10 revolutions per minute is going to give differing results to what a cam chain is really doing with the engine at 5000 revolutions per minute

when was the last oil-change?

[Swin]

Different bike I know, but my old Bandit had a similar rattle which turned out to be the clutch basket

Last oil change was about a year ago

The noise is defo coming from the front end