I freely admit and am unashamed of the fact that I come from a sport-bike background. Nothing serious mind you — I don’t travel on one wheel with my hair aflame or measure the length of my manhood with the amount of power I can seat below it. I come from a world of Japanese precision and practical grace, like the Ninja 500 or 250r for instance. So when I hear a rattle under power I become concerned.
Chuck and I have a beautiful little Yamaha V-Star 650 that is, quite honestly, a sparkly little cherry. We’ve spent the last few weeks tuning it in and shining it up to a harmony of mechanical excellence. It runs like a top around the neighborhood and is well-mannered for a chrome-laden cruiser. It was time to step it up a notch. But during its maiden highway voyage, I noticed that when you put any power to it over 60 mph it had a rattle around the front area.
After a two-hour session of bolt-and-spoke checking, a chance encounter found the speedo cable bracket to be the issue. I couldn’t believe it. From the same people who design something like the R6 I get a cable that rattles around inside this bracket like a model T with a chest cold.
I thought, surely this has got to be something I can fix. They wouldn’t do this to us, not Yamaha. A test drive at the local dealer revealed that indeed even the new ones fresh off the showroom floor have the same tell-tale rattle.
Do any Toolmonger bikers out there have a fix for this that doesn’t involve removing the bracket to let the cable swing free or restricting the cable to the point it becomes a limiting factor when trying to operate the vehicle? Let us know in comments.