Ticking noise

[thaddeus]

Greetings all,

My Freerider V2 is about five weeks old, which I love and has travelled about 500km, and has developed an annoying "ticking" noise. It makes the noise once per revolution of the cranks, when the left crank is furthest from me and under load. The noise seems to emanate from the front of the bike, perhaps nearer to the derailleur. I have a feeling it is not as prevalent in higher and top gear. After sorting out another, unrelated noise (by tensioning spokes in the rear wheel) I have dealt with the problem systematically but without success. It's driving me nuts.

So far I have:

a. Also checked and tensioned front wheel spokes;
b. Removed the pedals, greased the threads and re-tightened;
c. Removed the derailleur and hanger, applied a film of grease to contact surfaces, greased thread of fasteners and re-tightened;
d. Applied film of grease in the dropouts and tightened QR spindle;
e. Applied WD-40 to bushes on chainstays, near BB and below seat;
f. Applied film of grease to chainwheel ring contact surfaces and the five fasteners and re-tightened;
g. Applied film of grease to handlebar clamp allen bolts and dry contact areas and re-tightened;
h. Tightened QR clamps on telescopic boom and seat tube;
i. Greased and re-tightened bolts and bushings on shock absorber
j. Checked and tightened brakes, crank nuts

Can anyone shed light on this problem? I thought I'd solved it yesterday after step (i) and I had a quiet bike for a while, but the problem has come back today.

Thanks,

Warwick Dunbar
Melbourne
Australia

 

[John Tolhurst]

Left crank nut?

 

[Doug Burton]

Warwick,

First, thanks for being so thorough and documenting what you've looked at.

Since you hear this noise seated in the cockpit, and I assume you can't make it happen on the workstand, here's what I'd look at:

1. Check the bottom bracket and make sure it's tight in the shell. Tightening torque on the BB is 360 in-lbs. Won't hurt to back the reatiner out and grease it, provided you torque it properly on reassembly.

2. Sometimes the pivot bolt, at the top of the TFT running through the pivot clamp, will make a tick or squeak noise if it's not tight. Back it out, apply a little grease where the inner shaft touches the joint in the upper TFT (the part with the adjustment numbers on it.) and tighten it back up. Since the whole assembly is in front of you, and sounds tend to travel through the whole thing; this can be hard to isolate.

3. Check the lower pivot (the silver part that works like an axle for the chainstays, right behind the BB) and make sure it's tight. You can also back this out and grease it; this will also take any "stiction" out of the front suspension.

4. Make sure the pivot clamp at the bottom of the stem extension is tight. With the bike on the ground, loosen the clamp bolts and re-tighten them.

Lemme know how this works out. Noises are the hardest problems to diagnose, and very irritating!

Best,

Doug

 

[thaddeus]

Hi again,

Thanks for your prompt replies. I kinda knew this would happen... as soon as I share it with the world, I immediately find the solution after days of mucking around.

Certainly, I did fix a creak coming from the handlebar clamp and riser the other night. I could reproduce that noise with the bike stationary by applying strain. But there was another, coincidental, noise...

Would you believe my left thigh was lightly tapping the rear brake cable into the frame between the headset and seat bracket? The frame tube was acting like a amplifier, and changed what you would expect such a noise to sound like into a metallic click like you might get from a pedal shaft with play and/or not tightened properly. 5 cents of cloth tape has given me back my sanity.

I've put 26 by 1 1/8 Continental Ultra Gator tyres on it, so the whole bike kind of spools up and sings on smooth bitumen.

Thanks again,

Warwick Dunbar

PS: I also noticed a little nut at the top end of and inside the telescopic tube near the pivot clamp. What is its function? It was loose until I tightened it to barely finger pressure.

 

[Mark B]

thaddeus wrote: Hi again,

Thanks for your prompt replies. I kinda knew this would happen... as soon as I share it with the world, I immediately find the solution after days of mucking around.

Certainly, I did fix a creak coming from the handlebar clamp and riser the other night. I could reproduce that noise with the bike stationary by applying strain. But there was another, coincidental, noise...

Would you believe my left thigh was lightly tapping the rear brake cable into the frame between the headset and seat bracket? The frame tube was acting like a amplifier, and changed what you would expect such a noise to sound like into a metallic click like you might get from a pedal shaft with play and/or not tightened properly. 5 cents of cloth tape has given me back my sanity.

I've put 26 by 1 1/8 Continental Ultra Gator tyres on it, so the whole bike kind of spools up and sings on smooth bitumen.

Thanks again,

Warwick Dunbar

PS: I also noticed a little nut at the top end of and inside the telescopic tube near the pivot clamp. What is its function? It was loose until I tightened it to barely finger pressure.

That's the safety widgit, so you can't accidentally have the TFT come completely apart if you happen to forget to tighten the QR.

I had a noise like that on Silvio II. I swore it was coming from the carboyoke connection to the mainframe. Turned out to be a poorly adjusted aheadset. I have an idiot for a mechanic!

Mark

 

[JonB]

Mark B wrote: I had a noise like that on Silvio II. I swore it was coming from the carboyoke connection to the mainframe. Turned out to be a poorly adjusted aheadset. I have an idiot for a mechanic!

Your car driver is worse ;-)

I had the same noise on my Freerider, but it disapeared once i put the Rohloff on.

 

[trapdoor2]

Words to the wise: Chase down those annoying noises!

Last summer, Bro’ Don started hearing a ‘tick-tick’ (with his hearing difficulties, anything above his noise floor is probably noticeable 50 ft away). Standard problem solving ensues, no source is found (this is on his Optima Baron) and the noise has progressed to a ‘creak-creak’. Whilst continuing to problem solve, he finds the lower-rear chain-stays (both) are cracked thru about 90%. To see it, one would think it would have collapsed under its own weight…but it was holding up.

To our amazement and the credit of Optima, he is getting a replacement frame (paying only their costs, as he is not the original owner, etc.), which should be here in a month or two. I keep telling him that he should just sell it and buy a Silvio...but he's not ready...yet!

 

[Mark B]

JonB wrote:

Mark B wrote: I had a noise like that on Silvio II. I swore it was coming from the carboyoke connection to the mainframe. Turned out to be a poorly adjusted aheadset. I have an idiot for a mechanic!

Your car driver is worse ;-)

I had the same noise on my Freerider, but it disapeared once i put the Rohloff on.

It's the same guy.... A real ding-dong. Let me tell you, he eats too much, farts way too much and drinks all my darned beer. I only keep him around because I feel sorry for him and he makes me laugh a lot. :roll:

Mark