Ticking sound in front of the engine - Should I worry?

Hi everyone I'm new to this forum and a complete newbie to motorcycling. I'm about to buy my first bike, a '99 sv650 s from someone else.

Trouble is, the owner says there's a newly developed "ticking" sound coming from the front cylinder, somewhere to the left. As a result, he dropped the price (quite a bit), which makes the bike VERY affordable. I've read the other posts about the ticking sounds of the sv, but I'm still worried. If it's not the cam tensioner (which seems to be the culprit for most ticking sounds), could it be something more serious that would make the bike worthless?

Oh, and I should mention that the owner lives quite far from me (approx 600km ~ 400 miles), so if it's something serious and I go, I've got a long drive for nothing ahead of me..
The bike has on it about 41k km (~26k miles) (thought it might help...)

Any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated

Originally Posted by andreis

hi everyone i'm new to this forum and a complete newbie to motorcycling. I'm about to buy my first bike, a '99 sv650 s from someone else.

Trouble is, the owner says there's a newly developed "ticking" sound coming from the front cylinder, somewhere to the left. As a result, he dropped the price (quite a bit), which makes the bike very affordable. I've read the other posts about the ticking sounds of the sv, but i'm still worried. If it's not the cam tensioner (which seems to be the culprit for most ticking sounds), could it be something more serious that would make the bike worthless?

Oh, and i should mention that the owner lives quite far from me (approx 600km ~ 400 miles), so if it's something serious and i go, i've got a long drive for nothing ahead of me..
The bike has on it about 41k km (~26k miles) (thought it might help...)

any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated

it most proberly will be that 99.999 percent

Okay. That's 1 for cam tensioner - 0 for serious unknown problem

[fizzwheel]

If its ticking its more than likely the cam chain tensioner which is IMHO nothing to worry about and if you are its an easy fix.

What would be more serious would be a knocking, thumping or banging coming from the bottom end of the engine as long as its not like that then IMHO you shoudl be OK.

My Sv ticked and it was still ticking when I sold it with 36,000 miles on it. My other halfs SV ticks and thats up to 40,000 miles neither have shown or show any sign of engine problems.

Can you phone him up and get him to hold the phone near the bike so you can hear it run ? Or is there anybody you can take with you to get a 2nd opinion ?

Thats heck of a drive to do to find out the bikes not what he says it is...

Sure is.. I'll give him a ring in the morning and ask him to spare some time for some worried ears.. See what the engine has to say for itself (hope it's a nice vruum-vruuum along with a cam tensioner sound i've heard on youtube )

[dizzyblonde]

The SV has a 'quirky' ticking, I find it more so after a very good run. Both my SVs have different tickings to each other!
Just for fun, the SV is similar in design to the Suzuki TL...which stands for 'Ticks Loudly'
There can be a more serious ticking, that indeed can be the cam chain, but that my friend would be very apparent.

Welcome to the forum.

[dizzyblonde]

may I point you to this thread, in particular the link to a video below all the pictures. If your ears are good you maybe able to hear a faint ticking, under the main engine noise. Both my SVs sound like this

http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.p...35#post1888435

thanks. I did hear that. it's faint ticking indeed. I'll ask the guy to tape it and send it to me. Then I'll maybe see what I'm up against..

Ticking wont be the cam tensioner, if it was the cam tensioner the engine would make some VERY loud knocking and rattling sounds. id say its most likely just a normal mechanical noise. V-twins are noisy because of their big internals.

This is the sound of a slack tensioner...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTQqu...eature=related

[yorkie_chris]

Front-Left points squarely at the camchain tunnel.

On the SVs a seriously failing camchain tensioner makes a rather loud slap slap slap noise as the tensioner blade goes all over the shop.
A ticking is not usually serious, there is always some amount of play in the tensioner mechanism.

Knocking or rumbling is the one to watch out for.

Greek, the vid you posted is on a 4 pot, these have far more valves acting on each revolution of the same chain, so more reversals of tension on the chain. The SV only having 2 cams on the one chain means the ticking is far lower in frequency than that vid. I reckon the sound itself is pretty realistic.

Find ljharmitts vid, that one is a classic "if it sounds like this it's about to lunch itself" post.