I've had a Terra for about 2 weeks now. Love this bike. My previous bike was an 04 KLR (since deceased, totaled in a wreck). I have about 100 miles on the Terra. Everything is great, but it's developed a funky little exhaust note that's tweety sounding when I let of the throttle. If you rev the engine, it sounds fine, but the moment the tack falls off there's this irritating rattle. The KLR had a similar issue, which was remedied with a 10" screwdriver down the exhaust, placed just right, with a hard but loving smack with a hammer, which opened up the baffle a little and separated the metal that was reverbirrating. Has anyone else experienced this with the Terra, and if so, what's the fix? I'm considering exploratory surgery on the pipe.
ditto on the chirp. I'm relieved that it isn't just me. Maybe its the sound of the molecular breakdown of the plastic in the rear fenders.
I found it! The spark arrester screen is held in the tips of the cans by a steel retaining ring. Put your finger on the ring as the bike idles (don't let it get full hot first!), rev the engine, and feel the ring vibrate when you let off the throttle. Something with back pressure and all that. But, that's where Tweety lives!
I have the same noise in the right exhaust pipe. I dont know what it is but suspect its the spark arrestor. Im going to pull it out and see if it still chirps.
We removed the spark arrestor baffles on a Terra last night and the packing immediately started blowing out of the exhaust, at that point is wasn't going to be worth the effort to stuff it all back it so with a little help of my leatherman we pulled out all of the packing from both mufflers (if you're planning to do this job I highly recommend wearing a latex glove and long sleeve tight cuffed shirt as I was itching from the fiberglass two showers later) By pulling the packing with the bike running it just came out with ease. It has livened up the sound without being obnoxious and seems to not hurt power devlivery, maybe even improved it a tad but none of that was proven on a dyno so your impressions may vary!
You wouldn't still have access to what parts came out do you? Would be cool to see a few pics of what to expect if others deside to go this route.
Perfect, thank you very much! Last question (yeah right), I heard there is a small catalytic converter inside each muffler located at the muffler clamp end. Did you hog those suckers out too, or just focus your attention on the baffels, packing and arrestors? Thank you again, Kev.
Well got my Terra a few days ago and have had the extreme displeasure of experiencing 200 miles of obnoxious decel tweet For those of you who got it to stop...was the fix complete removal of the spark arrestor or did you just wedge something into the retaining ring area to tighten it up and keep it from vibrating? Kev.
I kind of like the chirping. It reminds me of the chirping made by some of the more exotic Ducati carbs. Seriously though, I wonder if a coat of Neversieze on the retaining ring would make a difference. Worth a try!
Some of the other posts have guys pulling the spark arrestors and packing. With these EFI computer controlled bikes, I am a bit nervous about opening up the exhaust that much with out being able to adjust the air fuel mixture/computer via a power comander or fuelpak. I took a simpler approach. I pulled the circlips and coated them with a bit of anti sieze goop. The silver goop should stifle tweety and help keep the clips from rusting. I can always add a bit more goop to them every now and then. For now doing this seems to have helped. Maybe if Vance and Hines or the power comander guys come out with a module, I'll open up the exhaust a bit and let Elsa my swedish beauty breath a bit more.
