Fairing Bolts - and a rattling noise.

[jpipinich]

Crew, I'm getting some unwanted rattles under acceleration on my Kat. The bike was laid over before I bought it and I am in the process of reparing the fairings. I was looking up fairing bolt kits to complete the work once all of the pieces are back in order and I noticed alot of rubber washers go with the kits. Many of the fairing bolts on the bike as is are not accompanied by any kind of rubber washer - they just go through the plastic into the metal where they bolt in. I did notice rubber washers around the outer windscreen bolts. Although I don't expect washers to solve the rattling, I am wondering if there are washers missing elsewhere (that were omitted by previous owners). Does anyone know what bolts are supposed to have rubber washers on them on a 2005 Katana?

As far as the rattle, its quite pronounced and is coming from somewhere under the instrument cluster. It is most pronounced under hard acceleration. I can't think of a way to describe it any better, but, something is definately lose. I will update when I know more.

[hardlydangerous]

pop the tank off... check that the cross brace is installed correctly with the rubbers facing up !

Ive had a couple customers with a loud vibration rattle. each time a shop or themselves had installed the tank brace upside down.....

[jpipinich]

You would'nt happen to have a picture or some way to give a noob a little more reference would you. It's gotta be something like that though, because I've checked most everything that you can get to without tearing it half way down.

BTW, thanks.

[chrisx2]

I realize this is an old thread, but I believe I've located one souce and may be similar to yours or may be helpful to others...I had a rattle/buzz at certain RPMs other than engine noise and was definitely something knocking against something else. I thought it was the fairings having been removed and reintalled several times.

It turned out to be the wire thing in the front center that holds some of the cables as they go down under the tank. It is only loosely coiled around a round component of the triple t and is not hard fastened. So that's metal on metal, and at the right RPM/resonance, I'd get a rattle/buzz from it. I used a zip tie for now to put some tension on it and it seems to have fixed the noise. Hope this is helpful to others.