Hi all,

I have a 2010 Tenere and I've just hit 30,000 miles, most of which has been in the past 2 years (mostly road use with some greenlaning). Recently it has developed a very nasty sounding engine noise.

For the past month, once a week, I have been doing quick motorway runs of about 200 miles sitting in top gear at high speed (obviously not what it's designed for). At the last oil change I took out about 1.8l so pretty low although my dealer said that shouldn't have caused too much damage??

https://youtu.be/Qjxm532PJZs

Also in the past few months the bike developed a backfire although this didn't affect the performance or sound of the bike. When cold and rolling off the revs the normal popopopop was replaced with silence from the exhaust before BANG. I mentioned it to the garage who said not to worry

I 'might' be running a little rich too. My fuel trip is kicking in about 20 miles sooner than before although this could be my riding.

So pretty stumped and not sure where to start. I've never worked on the tenere's engine before but I'm stupid enough to consider it. My girlfriend and I, although inexperienced, have done some open heart surgery on an old DR650 and learnt a lot so would be willing to dabble if time allows.

Hope you can help - thanks in advance,

Greg

Sounds very much like a loose crank nut, which is a known problem and seems to effect a random selection of XTs over the years.

What you will need to do is remove the left hand engine cover (with water and oil pumps) and expose the primary drive gears. You can then access the 36mm nut on the end of the crankshaft, fit a new lock washer and re-torque it.

This thread is probably worth a read:

http://www.xt660.com/showthread.php?t=23951

It isn't an expensive job to do (just new gaskets etc.) unless the loose nut has caused other damage. In all the cases recorded on the forum, a re-tightening of the nut has rectified the issue with no further trouble.

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Brilliant. Definitely sounds worth a look.

Thanks for the quick response. I'll be back if it doesn't sound better!

Sorry, should read 36mm nut (typo!)

Good luck - I hope it is the problem and you get it sorted.

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All sorted. Exactly what you said. Once the cover was off the bolt was less than finger tight.

Due to lack of time and space I booked it in to my local Yam dealer. After a few phonecalls they establish that Yam are aware of the issue, but have made no manufacturing changes in this area since the birth of the new Tenere. He checked all the torque setting for each year and the part numbers remain the same.

Thanks very much for your help!

Hi there!
This thread just saved my bacon
Last week I suffered the same engine noise on my Tenere, and thanks to this thread I surmised that it too was due to this loose crank nut issue.

The descriptions, photos and video link truly helped and saved me vast amounts of faffing and head scratching and ultimately sorted the problem quickly and easily in just a few hours.
Thank you to you all.

Halgeir

Glad it helped. Good job

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http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=988891 'South Dakota to South America'

So - After getting the bike fixed I'd left it mainly garaged for about 4 months, taking it out maybe once a month for a decent ride. The noise is back though. And it's bad.

My local garage being a yam dealer (and after contacting Yamaha), replaced the nut and washer and re-torqued to the settings outlined in the workshop manual (something like 85nm). I know others re-torque tighter around 120nm.

I'm gonna take off the cover again and see if it's worked loose. The only other thing I can think is damage was caused when it was loose before, or the threads themselves have stretched?!

Will post more once the covers back off.

Threads need to be cleaned with an evaporating degreaser or brake cleaner than dried. If a thread lock was used previously then use a wire brush first to get all the old crud off. Next you need a high strength locking fluid, not normal thread lock - "high strength ". Torque up.

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check out www.redbikejohn.com for all the latest race reports from the CHEC and enduroland.

Ok! So. We took off the engine covers and the nut wasn't as loose as last time. Certainly above finger tight - which is odd because the noise was a lot worse than before. We removed the nut, added decent loctite and retourqued up above the workshop manual recommendation (as others have done on here). I left the mechanic to clean off the old gaskets and put it back together. He replaced the oil and filter and started the bike and the noise was still there (albeit slightly better).

Apparently Yam TDMs don't respond well to aftermarket oil filters (I've used the readily available Hiflo ones for the past 4 years). He replaced the filter with a genuine yam one and now it sounds absolutely perfect! Either that or he filled the engine with sawdust. I really cannot believe how much better it sounds now. The engine itself just purrs - it's always sounded like a bag of nails since I bought it!