Strange knocking sound

[Dr. Jekyll]

Since I'm the FNG and new to metric bikes in general I'm going to post what I hope isn't a rookie question. I did search and found nothing relevant.

When hitting small pot holes and even when I rap on the front brakes quickly, there's a knocking / clunking sound that sounds like it's coming from the top of the fork or the triple trees. I already checked everything for tightness and all looks good but I have no idea. It's annoying so i thought I would throw it out to the group. Thanks in advance.

 

[Ignacio]

I did search and found nothing relevant.

When hitting small pot holes and even when I rap on the front brakes quickly, there's a knocking / clunking sound that sounds like it's coming from the top of the fork or the triple trees.

Odd. I found lots of likely relevant hits when I search on +clunking +sound and other similar search terms and find hits including rotors, steering head bearings, and other possibilities.

 

[Dr. Jekyll]

I did my searching too as I was hoping to find the answer in short order but I'm looking for some with my particular year and the identical problem. Thanks for the tip on +clunking and +sound, that yielded over a hundred results.

 

[JamesK]

I did my searching too as I was hoping to find the answer in short order but I'm looking for some with my particular year and the identical problem. Thanks for the tip on +clunking and +sound, that yielded over a hundred results.

If your head and wheel bearing are not loose or damaged (as you said you've already checked them), then the clunking sound in the situations you describe is likely due to the light movement in the rivets on the front rotors. This is perfectly normal and other than changing the rotors to something like the EBC Square-Drive technology you're not going to eliminate it. My rotors were pretty worn out and I replaced them with the EBC SD rotors - haven't heard a clunk once since then

 

[Queensland Ken]

Either the steering head bearings are a bit loose, easy to check, or the floating front discs.

Get a mate to help lift the front of the bike up, while its on its centre stand. (pull down the rear of the bike)

Push / pull the bottom of the forks to and fro.

You may have some slight movement of the forks, but you'll notice loose head bearings.

The rotors on the FJR do "clunk" a bit sometimes when they move under brakes.

Cheers

 

[Dr. Jekyll]

Thanks for the replies JamesK an Queensland Ken! I really appreciate the feedback.

 

[Tyler]

I thought you guys liked knockers...

Oh wait... different topic.

 

[ahchiu]

I thought you guys liked knockers...

Oh wait... different topic.

They do like knockers..just not loose balls...

 

[mvette]

Speaking of balls, my main nut on the top triple tree was not more than hand tight when first got my 07. It was knocking also before tightning.

 

[Bounce]

The top nut doesn't hold the steering head in place. it's for retaining the yoke that the bars attach to. The 2 castle nuts underneath need to be torqued to spec for the steering head to be right.

https://www.fjr-tips.org/maint/shb/shb.html

 

[mvette]

The top nut doesn't hold the steering head in place. it's for retaining the yoke that the bars attach to. The 2 castle nuts underneath need to be torqued to spec for the steering head to be right.

https://www.fjr-tips.org/maint/shb/shb.html

This is true, but the top nut is what secures the triple tree to the top of the steering head. The triple tree has the pinch bolts for the top of the shocks. If the triple tree is not tight to the steering head there is still movement there even with the bearings preloaded correctly. The yoke that holds the bars or the triple tree also supports the top of the shocks.