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Thread: 08 zx14 rattle (with video)

Created on: 02/03/15 11:01 PM

Replies: 17

travesty



Joined: 02/03/15

Posts: 12

08 zx14 rattle (with video)
02/03/15 11:01 PM

Hello all, Long time reader and first time poster. Last season I picked up 08 zx14 with approx 18k on the clock. she treated my great(minus a blown stator). Stator was replaced, but developed a minor leak from the stator cover. Gasket replaced a number of times with OEM and aftermarket and with and without sealant. she would still leak(i think its from the cable).

Anyway, I didnt mind the minor leak so I left it alone. Until oneday I rode her about 15-20 miles and she started to get sluggish. I got to my destination and she would not restart. i knew the battery was fine as she was on a tender. I stood her up and lookin in the oil glass.......not a drop. I found a local bike shop and bought 2qt of 10w40 synthetic to get up to a better level. she took them both and she started right up. I dint want her too far from home so i rode her home. about 10 miles into the ride, she started to give a slight rattle. I continued to ride at no higher than 3rpm. by time i got about 3 miles from home she sounded like i was riding a dirtbike or supermoto.

I have not rode her since and the video i am posting is the only other time i have even started her. I have not touched her(no oil/filter change or check) dont want to waste $80 in oil and filers and it will just be wasted when the engine is taken apart.

I am not mechanically inclined to pull the engine apart or even drop the oil pan. I know that i will need to take her to the shop but i was hoping for somewhat of an idea of what "may" be the issue. Valve? Rod?

Hopefully some of the veterans can steer me in the right direction.

not sure of this link will work but i'll try anyway
http://s606.photobucket.com/user/Travestybx/media/IMG_4770_1.mp4.html

if the link doesnt work please copy and paste in ur browser


thanks you all

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Grn14


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Location: Montana

Joined: 02/25/09

Posts: 15511

RE: 08 zx14 rattle (with video)
02/04/15 12:29 AM

That's definitely something serious.Do NOT ride.Dealer work here if you can't do anything with it yourself.Loss of power...no oil...this noise...bad.IDK what it is...but it's not okay for sure.Hub might be able to tell what it is...I would guess.Or some others here....hope they post up soon...I'd like to know what they think it is.Maybe a valve?IDK.

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Rook


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Joined: 03/28/09

Posts: 20856

RE: 08 zx14 rattle (with video)
02/04/15 1:48 AM

Yeah, I agree with Grn. That sounds kind of serious. It sounds like a cam chain rattle but that normally goes away after 20 seconds or less.



08 MIDNIGHT SAPPHIRE BLUE ZX-14 Now Deceased, will be resurected 2024 ZX-14R bran friggin NEW!

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VicThing


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Joined: 07/17/14

Posts: 2402

RE: 08 zx14 rattle (with video)
02/04/15 3:32 AM

You said you put in the 2 quarts of oil you bought. Did that fill it to the sight glass?

I agree with others, unless you want to risk worse damage and possibly an accident do not ride. I would also not start it unless it's specifically for the sake of diagnosing the issue, at the request of a mechanic (because you're not mechanical as you said). Trailer it to the dealer when you need to. Obviously you can do what you want or may be limited to what you can.

The noise in the video is interesting. It's more than a tick, but not quite a knock. The interesting thing is near the end as you're revving it a bit, as the engine rpms decrease the tick becomes floaty.

Since you road it, and haven't stated the ticking changes whether or not the bike is in gear, clutch engaged/disengaged, I think a transmission related noise is safe to eliminate. If that wasn't the case, I could call this a bad shift fork issue (likely bent).

I see 2 potentials issues. One is cam chain related, possibly the tensioner. Are you sure your bike's cam chain tensioner wasn't replaced with a manual adjuster? This is a popular mod on 14s. But unless the chain jumped a tooth or two, it doesn't really explain the loss of power or the floaty sound. Also, you should've noticed the ticking getting progressively louder over time as the cam chain stretched more and more. One situation I have seen is, in the valve cover of some bikes there are rubber chain guides which occasionally detach themselves and can cause a rattle very much like this. But I don't think the 14 has these pieces.

This makes me think broke valve spring, or some issue up in the valve train. This would also account for the loss of power. The nature of the noise seems to me something valve train related.

When the tick starts to float, it's basically got to mean there's a part loose, or broke loose and it's no longer mechanically controlled. Normally a failed bearing will be a heavier knock, and unless the engine's basically destroyed will not have a floaty sound.

My 2 cents, not a mechanic, and often times mics, where the camera is held, hide many of the harmonics someone might here in person.


* Last updated by: VicThing on 2/4/2015 @ 4:16 AM *

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Nastynotch


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Location: Lumberton, TX

Joined: 02/21/14

Posts: 939

RE: 08 zx14 rattle (with video)
02/04/15 5:11 AM

I think it's valve train related. No matter where its coming from, a tear down is in order. Sorry man that sounds like an ouchy



2013 ZX-14R SE
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travesty



Joined: 02/03/15

Posts: 12

RE: 08 zx14 rattle (with video)
02/04/15 5:42 AM

Thank you all for you advice and input. When I bought 2qts, I though that was all she needed. Actually didn't expect her to take them both. I was in New York, Times Square area. I say that because there is not a single bike shop hell even autostore(autozone, pep boys) for miles! I had to take a subway to get the 2qt.

And I did notice the ticking becoming worse as I neared my home. At that moment I just made the decision to "make it home". That was the last time I rode her. And I only started her to record that video. I will definitely be trailering her to a mechanic within the next couple weeks. I just wanted a possible idea of what I was looking at. I've never had a bike with a blown motor so I wasn't sure if this was the beginning of failure.

I will keep u guys posted

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Hub


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Joined: 02/05/09

Posts: 13800

RE: 08 zx14 rattle (with video)
02/04/15 9:11 AM

Lettuce put it this way, Trav, sounds like big bucks. No more starting. Whipping the engine up is a rod about to kick out the case. Tell the service writer to drop the sump to inspect rather than hear the engine. That one last rev by the tech and it blows out the case, make sure you said to not start it or they eat the cases and a lot more parts it takes out. Have them sign it on their own work order they wrote you up with>> you told them so. They need to know just to save both [of you] a lot of grief.

Here's the scenario for low oil level:
1. Low oil is not at splash lubing height.
a. That's splash under the piston and onto the cylinder walls to lube/cool.
b. There is some ticking and when the piston changes direction, the piston can slap if the tolerance is not in place. So a tick-tick is one variable of lost clearances due to galling and snowballs the metal off the part, causes material to drop to the bottom.
c. The timing chain needs lubing and the chain slipper guide to keep the slapping happening from lifts off the throttle. That rattle of the chain sounds like?
d. The top end is last to be lubed and the head has the most heat to be cooled. As little as that oil was receiving, in other words, the pump is waiting for that oil to come back down, it may have gone dry.

Here is the 'lost my power' scenario:
2. Once a noise is heard...
a. Never start it again but tear it down to inspect.
b. The galling has happened, nothing smooth is moving over parts. Note the galling and the expansion of clearances begin to make noise.
c. Continued running is that the clearance is gone, no pressure to hold oil from moving slower and not pickup heat to move away from the parts.
d. The galling continues and the noise becomes louder. There is this spinning/churning/crunching/powdered down parts laying in the sump pan. The powder gets sucked up the oil pump, crushes those powdered parts, imbeds into the pump blades, sends that material throughout the engine and that means oiled powder in the transmission gears and bearings.
e. The ticking noise up top? I'm going to guess your top end is the last to be lubed, spins twice as opposed to the crank turning once. The galling took out the cam caps and saddles, the valve opens and this now pushes the cam up the galled caps, the valve does not open wide like it once did. The power increases, the loud top end ticking becomes louder as you rode home, etc.

Possible engine damage?

Pistons: That powder contamination and the mixing there of with the oil. The 2qt splash is now mixed with that worn powder, the splash has some powder mixed, the scratching of the cylinder walls gouge out the finish and piston's finish.

Rings: Possible rings being cut with lines. Add the lines up in the ring and there is a leak past the rings. More loss of power.

Head: The last to be lubed is the head. The ticking top end would sound like a wiped head, the cam floating, the buckets tapping noise is that float way out of tolerance.

Cam: Rub two hands together, which stayed cold? So with two metals meeting each other dry, they gall the softer metal and the lines in the harder material cannot be machined away without losing that preset tolerance from that core cam.

Crank: Again, what got sucked up the pump and now is spit out of a lube hole, the contaminants wipe the bearing, the line made in the crank's smooth finish, that galling or snowballing of that one cut around the crank, starts in on the next 360 degrees and eats more on the next gouge and the next 360 degrees gouges more out and so on.

Rods: The connecting rods float on the crank and slap to the sides of the crank. If this is galled as the contaminants are pushed out the crank insert, this spinning on the thrust sides will gall that thrust and now the rods are galled at that area as is the crank. One might inspect that area. But if you sand that clearance down on the rod, the rod is now narrower and the thrust is going to slam into the thrust side, not fluff into the side with less clearance to soften the blow. Add cleaning the crank's thrust area and you now drive a semi thru the gaps.

Inserts: The crank has to be inspected to see IF those inserts were damaged. If say they drop the pan, push each rod big end, one will move and that says junk crank/inserts/rods/etc. So technically, I pull the valve cover for top end damage and drop the pan for powered material... I do not need to hear the engine having those top and bottom end covers showing the way.


* Last updated by: Hub on 2/4/2015 @ 9:14 AM *



Tormenting the motorcycling community one post at a time

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travesty



Joined: 02/03/15

Posts: 12

RE: 08 zx14 rattle (with video)
02/04/15 9:22 AM

Wow.... Thanks for the very detailed information. Only ticking I have heard was when I was about to part her up. And lastly when I recordrd the video for reference. I will definitely let my mechanic the heads up and see where this goes. I'm cared now... She's been good to me and I want to do the same for her. Dont want The insurance company to get their hands on her. Thanks Hub. I appreciate you.

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Grn14


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Location: Montana

Joined: 02/25/09

Posts: 15511

RE: 08 zx14 rattle (with video)
02/04/15 9:25 AM

Yup...good explanation Hub.I really don't think it's cam chain slap at all.The noise and timing of it is not consistent with a loose(r)chain.Not from what I've heard from my own CCT...on my 07 that is.This is definitely a one spot problem...it happens everytime the 'problem' makes a cycle.(in accordance with your assessment Hub.)

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travesty



Joined: 02/03/15

Posts: 12

RE: 08 zx14 rattle (with video)
02/04/15 10:34 AM

Thanks for all the help and advise you guys. Just spoke with my mechanic and gave him the run down. He gave me my options and i'll probably just go with the motor replacement. Looking at approx 4k to "repair". With no real measure how the damage. Now it's time to scour the net for a motor. Thanks everyone

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Hub


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Joined: 02/05/09

Posts: 13800

RE: 08 zx14 rattle (with video)
02/04/15 10:47 AM

You're welcome, Trav. If you had extended insurance with engine damage covered in that policy, those few premiums sent in each half year or whenever, would have paid off that engine damage. Reg insurance covers collision, you, the other guy, property, etc.

Crank alone is a grand. Rods are $200.00 each, and that's 2 grand right there. The head is 2k. Look up a kbb price and see how much trade-in is? Say it's another grand for more parts, we are now at 5k. That's why I say these are 'throwaway' bikes. Not worth rebuilding unless you tend to keep it forever if not for a few decades or less.

To clean the bore I have no clue how much to reline the finish? Say conservatively, 5k to rebuild. 3k to sell as is, or say that much for a trade-in price. We are at 8k more or less. Look how close that is to a new leftover or towards a used 14. That's 5k you shelled out for a 5k bike. Or, 8k towards a new bike. See the numbers and decisions?



Tormenting the motorcycling community one post at a time

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jwh20


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Location: Indiana

Joined: 10/31/13

Posts: 203

RE: 08 zx14 rattle (with video)
02/04/15 12:02 PM

travesty,

I'm going to hazard a guess that you've wrecked a big-end rod bearing. You likely ran low on oil and in riding it you exposed the pickup in the sump and the oil pump sucked air. So that interrupted oil to your engine. I have a friend which a Kia Optima who refuses to check or change his oil. A couple of weeks back he started it up and the oil light came on but he went ahead and started driving to work. About a mile later the Check Engine light came on and the car stalled. He had it towed and they found the low oil level (didn't register on the dipstick) and filled it back up. Now it's making that same sound. It's a rod bearing they say and I agree.

The top-end can go a lot longer without oil than the bottom end and the rod bearings move such that they throw what oil they have off much more quickly than the main bearings. So these are almost always the first to go in a low-oil situation.

It's not an impossible problem to resolve but it will be expensive and ALL the bearings are probably damaged to some degree. So you're looking at a complete rebuild. Dropping the oil sump should show bearing material at the bottom but rather than rebuilding you might be better off with a used engine from a wreck. Lots of low-mileage engines out there and you will save the rebuild costs and probably get a few hundred $$ for your trashed engine from someone looking for parts or to rebuild for turbo build or something crazy like that.

Good luck getting this sorted out. The good news is that Spring is still a few weeks away (here in the Midwest anyways) and you have time to get this sorted out before you're missing riding time!



2008 Kawasaki ZX-14 Special Edition
2012 Kawasaki Concours 14
2005 Honda GL1800 GoldWing
2002 Kawasaki ZRX1200R
1981 Honda CB900C

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yannih


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Location:

Queenstown New Zealand

Joined: 11/08/12

Posts: 2176

RE: 08 zx14 rattle (with video)
02/04/15 2:14 PM

I'm really sorry to read your situation travesty.

Rule No 1.
Do not start it any more no matter what.
I shuddered when I watched your vid and you were reving the engine.

But back to the problem at hand.

Coming from someone who had an engine go in an 07, I understand what you are going through right now.
IMO, get all the information regarding your options and then just take a while to digest before you rush into any decision because unfortunately what ever you decide is going to probably cost big bucks.

After investigation I found I had 3 options.
1.Replace engine with a second hand one. Cost. $4k-$5k.
2.Rebuild. Depending on damage $3k-$8k.
3.Put the bike on a trailer, drive at 100km/h, and push it off the back for insurance.
I spent ages deliberating over what to do.

In the end, I decided that a rebuild was not viable due to unknown damage and related unknown cost.
Like you, I do not have the smarts to tear down an engine and diagnose the problem.
If my dealer pulled the engine down to investigate and found massive problems with prohibitive rebuild costs, I would be left with a damaged engine in pieces plus a substantial tear down cost and be in a worse and undesirable position. Of course they may have found a relatively cheap fix as well but I wasn't willing to take that gamble.

I decided against the insurance option as I had spent so much time getting the bike which was pretty much in pristine condition to just the way I wanted it mods wise. Plus the candy plazma blue color is my favorite on 14's and a replacement would have been very hard to find again in the condition I wanted.
And of course that would be dishonest so we wouldn't do that now would we? I mean insurance companies are such fine standing pillars of the community!

So engine replacement with an 09 second hand low miles version that I searched out was settled upon. Overall cost was just under $5k with engine purchase, shipping and labour.
Happy now but wasn't overjoyed at the time as some of the forum guys who kindly helped me would have noticed (I think there is a thread on it here somewhere if you look).
In the end and after a lot of though it was the best option for me and an investment I was willing to make.

You may be very different.
I'm not saying these are the only options available for you, but they were all I had.
Perhaps you may have other ways to look such as mates who know their way around an engine that could help and keep your rebuild/engine replacement labour costs right down.

Which ever way you go all the very best and I hope all works out as well as it can for you...


* Last updated by: yannih on 2/4/2015 @ 2:32 PM *



2012 Metalic Spark Black Kawasaki ZX-14R. Yoshimura carbon R-77 slip ons,Custom dyno ECU flash,Striker rearsets,Hyperpro RSC steering damper,HM Plus quickshifter,ASV C5 levers,Hel SS transparent red front/rear brake and clutch lines,Kawasaki/MRA vented spoiler screen,Carbon heel guards,R&G radiator guard,Powerbronze carbon rear hugger,ZX-10 front fender with fender extender,Yoshimura frame sliders,M-Factory rear stand stoppers,Escort Redline radar detector,Techspec tank grips and tank protector,Versys 1000 fender eliminator,Kaoko cruise control,Moto red oil cap,Oxford heated grips,Red magnetic oil drain plug,Red and black Bagster Spider rear seat bag (for touring only).

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jwh20


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Location: Indiana

Joined: 10/31/13

Posts: 203

RE: 08 zx14 rattle (with video)
02/04/15 6:49 PM

yannih,

Is that US$ or AUS$?



2008 Kawasaki ZX-14 Special Edition
2012 Kawasaki Concours 14
2005 Honda GL1800 GoldWing
2002 Kawasaki ZRX1200R
1981 Honda CB900C

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travesty



Joined: 02/03/15

Posts: 12

RE: 08 zx14 rattle (with video)
02/04/15 6:52 PM

Yea that's my issue.. May just sell her for a couple dollars and buy another one. I appreciate all you guys advise..

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Hub


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Joined: 02/05/09

Posts: 13800

RE: 08 zx14 rattle (with video)
02/04/15 7:55 PM

Good move, Trav. 7yr old bike, etc. Someone has to want that bike for it's non-crash issues. The bike is a rolling parts bike for most of the 14 years so chassis wise, it's worth money as a roller. Engine wise, the bike to find is a crasher and no damage to the engine sides or the stator bang bends the crank end. You walk from that kind of stator side damage. Engine has to run before you buy it and here you save 1000's towards a new bike/leftover.

You can buy another used 14, park the rattler at the back of the garage (not outside) for spares.


* Last updated by: Hub on 2/4/2015 @ 7:57 PM *



Tormenting the motorcycling community one post at a time

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travesty



Joined: 02/03/15

Posts: 12

RE: 08 zx14 rattle (with video)
02/04/15 8:01 PM

Yea I'm comfortable with this decision. I if I can get 4k up for a repair than I should be able to put up 5k on top of whatever I get off this sale. I wish I was more mechanically skilled because I'd break her down and sell piece by piece. Bike has never been down so everything is perfect. Great oem plastics, frames, forks, etc.. You guys were a very big help. My mind has been racing all day on this issue

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yannih


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Location:

Queenstown New Zealand

Joined: 11/08/12

Posts: 2176

RE: 08 zx14 rattle (with video)
02/05/15 12:36 AM

Jwh20, $AU.

Travesty, congrats on the decision.
All the best finding a replacement you're happy with.



2012 Metalic Spark Black Kawasaki ZX-14R. Yoshimura carbon R-77 slip ons,Custom dyno ECU flash,Striker rearsets,Hyperpro RSC steering damper,HM Plus quickshifter,ASV C5 levers,Hel SS transparent red front/rear brake and clutch lines,Kawasaki/MRA vented spoiler screen,Carbon heel guards,R&G radiator guard,Powerbronze carbon rear hugger,ZX-10 front fender with fender extender,Yoshimura frame sliders,M-Factory rear stand stoppers,Escort Redline radar detector,Techspec tank grips and tank protector,Versys 1000 fender eliminator,Kaoko cruise control,Moto red oil cap,Oxford heated grips,Red magnetic oil drain plug,Red and black Bagster Spider rear seat bag (for touring only).

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