Bad vibration in 2001 California Special

[pete roper]

 

 

Hi again Pete, ok......I know what you mean about the lugging! This is my 2nd Cali, I never have had a problem keeping the revs up. this is not that, this is almost a buzzing in the floorboards, it acts almost like a harmonic imbalance. It "buzzes" right around 3,000, and is basically gone by 3,500. I suppose if I were to rev it to 3,500 everytime I took off, then I would not have the issue, but nowadays I live in an urban area and that is not really an option. This can't be right...I keep finding little things, and I keep fixing little things. Today I pulled both floorboards off, and found where they had been hitting the exhaust, the one on the right was hitting more that the shifter side, but they both had been hitting the exhaust, but you could not tell or see unless they were pulled off completely. They are solidly mounted, btw, that is right....right? Two 19mm nuts, obviously not factory had been put on the right hand side(brake) as spacers, obviously someone had tried to address this issue in some way, and/or whatever the factory had there was not doing...something. Thinking "got it now", I ground away on the floorboard brackets, put them back on, was already to do a post here, thought, "let me ride it just for jollies"....vibration is still there. Not as pronounced..almost more "buzzy", if you can sort of get my drift with that. Is there supposed to be anything rubber in the mounting system??? I'm ready to put pegs on, I did not mind them at all on my other Cali, and I don't really care for the shifting with the floorboards anyway. BUT...will that really fix anything? my gut tells me something is not right here.

 

OK, next thing is check alignment of the headers. It is more than possible that one or t'other of them is touching the frame at the front. That'll cause vibration in the boards as well. The boards should pivot on their mounts rather than being *solid*. Try Nylocks on the bolts and a wavy washer to enable them to move a bit. Also for improving the gear-shift re-locate the rod that goes to the cam off the arm off the back of the gearbox to the FRONT hole if it isn't there already. This gives a greater throw and will help elliminate false neutrals.

 

pete

[ArtD]

 

 

 

 

OK, next thing is check alignment of the headers. It is more than possible that one or t'other of them is touching the frame at the front. That'll cause vibration in the boards as well. The boards should pivot on their mounts rather than being *solid*. Try Nylocks on the bolts and a wavy washer to enable them to move a bit. Also for improving the gear-shift re-locate the rod that goes to the cam off the arm off the back of the gearbox to the FRONT hole if it isn't there already. This gives a greater throw and will help elliminate false neutrals.

 

pete

 

The boards do pivot, and they are not loose there, they have locknuts. I was wondering if where the floorboard mounting bracket mount to the frame itself should have some sort of isolation system. I'll take a real good look at the front pipes and see if they might possibly be hitting somewhere

[Baldini]

Presume you've checked all other exhaust, frame, engine, trans, stands etc mounting bolts/clamps are tight? Centre or side stand etc touching metal to metal?