Rattle in the dash

[sk8r78]

Hey Guys
New here. I have an 08 Uly and I have a bad rattle in the dash, about 99% sure it is the pin for the steering lock. It is metal to metal contact. It functions as designed, but when I'm at about 2500 rpm it rattles very audibly, very annoying! I have had the dash and lock cylinder out and there is a lot of free play in the pin. I was wondering if I am missing a plastic sleeve or something that covered the pin. I looked over the forum but couldn't find that anyone posted about it. so I'm guessing this is not a common issue. Any help would be much appreciated. Have already ridden a few times this year but our everyday season is still a bit off. I would like to have this figured out and fixed by the time it starts. Thanx in advance to anyone that has some helpful ideas.

 

[ToneTheMoan]

First of all welcome to the forum mate! I am sorry to say i cant help you with this but someone will for sure but just a long shot check that your horn isnt loose mine rattled and nearly drove me nuts!! lol

 

[Mope]

I can start you with a simple check and a common occurrence.......I've had to tighten my horn a number of times.

http://www.buellxb.com/forum/showthread.php?33933-Rattle-around-2k-what-is-it-!-!
http://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/messages/142838/197574.html?1148446344

 

[sk8r78]

Thanx Tone
I have removed and replaced or repositioned everything, trying to resolve the rattle, prior to determining it was the steering lock pin.

 

[ToneTheMoan]

Ok thats good then at least you know what you have to do then thats half the battle! This may sound dumb but its not the key/keyring is it that can transmit quite a sound at times! Have you got the ignition switch off the bike? pics?

 

[sk8r78]

Sorry it's not off now. I'll be sure to post up a pic or vid, next time I get into it. probably within the next few days. If I don't get some resolution here, my plan is to plasti-dip it.

 

[ToneTheMoan]

Ok just found this its a known ulysses problem on certain years this chap machined a new pin and made a sleeve from teflon! sorted!

 

[sk8r78]

Looks good ! Have a link to where the info is from ?

 

[ToneTheMoan]

I dont know how to link sorry but its in the BadWeb forum`s archive, march 7th- 19th 2009! "Triple tree disassembly 06 to 08 exchange" Its under "big bad and dirty" which is the Ulysses adventure section. not much help sorry mate!

 

[Tripleted]

I had a rattle and traced it down to the horn touching the inside of the painted front fairing. Turned the horn around and now it faces to the engine.

 

[Sagehawk]

horn bracket on my 07 12x just flat broke. didn't take long to find that one. i'm sure it still shakes quite a bit. but for now.....

 

[Tbone]

Mine broke about a week ago, I am going to try to bolt the horn directly to the flyscreen brace as shown in this post:
http://www.buellxb.com/forum/showthread.php?45760-Broken-horn-mounting-strap
Also trying to repair some stripped threads on the flyscreen with loctite thread repair today.

 

[TommyW]

Greetings from Finland, I borrow this old thread as I also struggled with very annoying rattling noise somewhere in the dash area, most often during deceleration between 2000 - 2500RPM. My bike is an XB12Ss 2007 with low mileage, but as it shares same technology with XB12X, probably the problems are also the same.

Long story short: steering lock pin was the source of rattle, it was quite loose allowing an axial movement in the lock base:

https://youtu.be/jZywDry8a6Q

A proper fix would probably require either a new pin with larger diameter or some kind of bushing around the pin. Even though I have a small lathe to produce helping items, I chose an easy solution this time: I wrapped a thin layer of tape around the pin (only on the surface which goes inside the lock base) to disable the axial movement. That seemed to solve the case at least for now - the annoying rattles are away + ignition/steering lock still works normally. If the problem should appear again, I’ll then spend some more time to fix it more properly, now as I know the source of the problem.