Noise Questions: 98 VFR

Hi all,

My recently purchased 98 VFR is making a few noises that I am not familiar with so I figured I would bring them up here and get some opinions:

1) When the bike is in neutral at a light and I release the clutch lever, I feel a vibration throughout the bike (besides from normal engine vibration) and there is a slight noise increase. I never experienced this on my previous 250. What is causing the vibration and noise? Is it the clutch spinning on the output shaft of the engine? My friends Triumph Street Triple does this same thing, so I assume it's normal, but I would like to know what it is.

2) Occasionally, when I have the bike in 1st gear while stopped at a light, I will hear a sporadic ticking noise coming from the clutch area. Could this be basket wear?

3) If I am cruising at about 65-70mph with the engine around 5k rpm, I will hear a dramatic increase in noise from the throttle bodies, sort of like a airy gurgling noise, it goes away above this RPM and the bike doesn't seem to have any performance issues, pulls hard and does not lug.

For more background, I just purchased the bike from a very reputable dealer, and before it was sold to me it had it's full 16k maintenance done (bike has 17200 miles on it, 17000 when I bought it)

Am I being a hypochondriac or are there potential issues I should be looking for more signs of?

Thanks!

 

Yes you are being a hypochondriac!

Clutches normally make more noise when released than when the lever is pulled in compressing the springs.

The airy gurgling noise is probably the flapper valve opening; should happen right on 5500 rpm. You can check this by disabling the flapper, pull the tank up at the front and pull off the vacuum hose attached to the diaphragm on top of the airbox. Plug the hose with a handy object (e.g. golf tee or bolt) so you don't have a vacuum leak. See if that makes the noise go away.