Evening all...new to this, joined today. Have a new 1260s, 2000 miles now..but from about 500 on it started banging/rattling every time I hit a pot hole or ridge in the road. Thought at first it was the side stand, or the main stand.... been back to the dealer 3x, they have taken both stands off and I still get it and the diagnosis now is chain slap. Tension has been checked but its still maddeningly there, and in narrow streets sounds like a 20 yr old bike. Dealer seems lost, their demonstrator has a similar noise but less pronounced. Wondered if any others had come across the same thing.
Welcome robert, on my enduro its carved a ridge into the swing arm exit hole before the sprocket. Doesn't slap much now but it use too.
Welcome - although I think I'm kind of too new to be welcoming you already! Too slack is better than too tight for a chain, but the settings are there to cater for worst case of swingarm pulling chain to max length, if you load up the bike (you sit on it with your heaviest gear on) and bounce on the foot pegs to see just how far it moves (an assistant will be required) you can maybe tighten the chain slightly to reduce the slap. If you're heavier than the average Italian bike racer and do 2 up riding with luggage I'd be tempted to live with it as insurance unless it is noticeably slack at full stretch.
Big suspension travel requires a loose chain. Unfortunately that’s just the way it is. The only way to change this is with sprocket size changes but you’re best off leaving it alone.
Yes, mine has had it since new. Took it back to the dealers twice and they could not find the issue. I eventually realised that I could reproduce it by riding over a piece of angle iron or a pipe with a 4 or 5 cm diameter. We then set up a go-pro next to the angle iron and filmed the bike going across it. We could then playback the video in slow motion. Only then did we find out it was the chain slapping against the swingarm! The chain was set perfectly to no avail. It's really irritating especially riding in a group or with a pillion and one rides on a road with little ruts, or where there are roots from trees going under the tar causing "bulges" in the tarmac. Then it rattles and bangs like crazy. It's also more pronounced when off-throttle and going between 30 and 40 km/h. It's a DISGRACE that we paid for a supposedly "premium product" containing design issues like this.
Hi there, same on my 2019 Pikes Peak, (+10K Kms so far) overall extremely satisfied with this Bike. It is just the noisy chain slap which irritates me. In fact I am at the moment modifying a new lower bottom chain guide. I am milling the front half. Practically I am milling down roughly 1cm from its height as the 1st (frt) half of the guide is about 1cm thicker than the 2nd half. Of course I will keep the same profile so it matches all the way till the end. I am hoping that by milling this 1cm off and thus giving more 'free space' for the chain to move, the chain slap noise will reduce. I wonder if this hard plastic chain guide can be made of softer material like rubber/silicone? I had bikes with rubberised guides. This should help reducing clatter noise. To be honest, I also think that some of the noise might be coming from the rear Sprocket / carrier / chain combination. In fact if you grab the sprocket and shake, there seems to be some generated noise between the sprocket and carrier. Same applies if you move the chain sideways on the rear sprocket. Read somewhere that when you increase the size of the rear sprocket say to 42 teeth, the noise will reduce. Maybe due to the added space between the swinging arm and chain (larger diameter), however, I am not willing to go for a new sprocket now... at least will wait till I need a new chain so I upgrade to a DID kit. But need also to check if the DQS will still work perfectly (up and down) with a bigger sprocket. Any feedback on the noise and larger sprocket /DQS points would be great.
Same issue here with slippy, sloppy, slappy chain on 2019 1260. I put it down to being another Multistrada quirk along with the warped but true front disks
I had this on my DVT and I truly HATE rattles...I tightened the chain a little to stop it. Not to the point where it will drag out a bearing, or where it will stop the suspension moving as it should, or where it will affect gear changing...but a bit tighter than the factory settings says. Result: No slop, no clatter and no issues. If you are gonna try it and cannot tell the difference between too much and too little, let someone else set it. Chains should never be run tight...but neither should they be run too slack. It needs experience to get the setting correct sometimes.
Hi, Indeed. Also had a 1260S and it was extremely irritating. Potholes, or rutted roads were a nightmare. Also the dealer was unable to locate the source of the noise until we setup a go-pro next to a piece of 5cm x 5cm angle iron over which I rode a number of times at between 10km/h and 30km/h. The go-pro captured the chainslap and noise. The chain hits the bottom of the swingarm. We then pulled the chain as tight as humanly possible, and although it then made less of a racket, we were unable to eliminate it. The second thing that irritated the sh1t out of me, was the clattering noise the DVT makes when one is in to high a gear at too low a speed, let's say, in 3rd instead of in 2nd and one snaps the throttle open. This bike of mine was stolen and I proceeded to replace it with the 950S and I have not been sorry for a single second.
