Hi , ive recently bought a buell xb9s and years of thinking of getting one. Its a 2003 and im not sure if its me being paranoid but it seems to have be making a ticking noise from the front cylinder top end ,it doesn't get any louder or quieter after a period of running and doesn't seem to suffer from any power loss . Is this normal ? Thanks in advance , david.

Depends what it is like, the pushrods make a clackity sound, but a clonkety sound at a low frequency could be a front big end issue...

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08 Specialized Langster

Hers a video of it running, I hope im doing this right so you can view it.

Doesn't sound too bad to me...

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08 Specialized Langster

This is with oil pressure missing (due to a failed oil pump gear): http://ecmspy.com/download/gunter/uglynoise.avi - also a MY 2003 XB9. If you ask me, I would check it immediately.

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"It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It's called living."
Terry Pratchett

Ive no speakers on my computer at work haha , kinda worried now , would one of those go after 5250 miles?

Hi Gunter, just wondering when you had the oil pump problem, did you oil light give any indication of failure?
Just curious as mine comes on when started then goes off as normal. Sorry about my first few posts being about problems too, been reading here for ages before posting, its a great site

The oil pump gear failed at very exactly 10k mls (16381 km), two days before the 10k service was scheduled (which, naturally, would not have changed anyhing as the oil pump gear is not checked in any service). Until the oil pump was fully stuck, I did not get a low pressure light, allthough the lifters were ticking quite noticeably at that time.

6k mls seems a bit early to me for a oil pump gear problem, but it's easily checked by pulling the oil pump to inspect the gear through that hole. My best advice is to get the undestroyable one from luckyhands.de and never have to think about it again.

My XB12 gave a ticking noise when really hot, and we fixed that by adjusting the axial play of the oil pump's gerotor (oil feed side).

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"It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It's called living."
Terry Pratchett

I changed my oil pump gear on my Firebolt tonight, well, I actually started doing it a few weeks ago, then went on holiday etc. etc.

Whipped the exhaust off, rotated the engine, whipped the front rocker box off then whipped the cam cover off. Course, not quite as simple as that, but the manual will talk you through. Much easier on a tuber though.

Before I pulled the engine apart, I thought I would see if I could see how the gear was doing after 12200 miles by removing the oil pump and peering into the abyss.


It looked OK, however prevention is better than cure... This one here lasted 16000 miles on another XB12R engine.


To get the nut off the end of the crank, you need to stop the crank from turning. You can do that by locking the primary drive, but it is a bit messy and means you have to take the primary cover off. Alternatively, you can use one of these nifty tools to lock the pinion gear.


Note that the allen screws are there just to hold it in place for the photo, when I used it in anger, I used hex heads with washers. My virtual best friend got one of these as an early birthday present...

You can see there is some wear on the gear I removed...


Instead of replacing the gear with the uprated Buell part, I opted for the indestructible oil pump drive gear from http://www.luckhands.de, which came as an early birthday present from my virtual best friend. Look how shiny it is, puts the uprated Buell one to shame...


I replaced the oil seal, in the cam cover with a tool I made on the lathe (pictures to follow), and all gaskets. Not the cheapest of jobs in either time nor parts, but cheaper than a lunched engine.

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08 Specialized Langster

What is that indestructable one made from Pash?

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2001 X1 2009 1125CR 2006 Uly X3 2010 Uly a fully Maz'd S1 and a 1991 RS1200 Westwind.

......and exactly how does it differ from the Buell part ?.......because I've seen/fitted both and cant tell the difference

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Mithered ta death.
92 MB
96 S2T
98 S1W
00 M2
01 X1
03 P3
10 CR

German hard cheese!

(plasma-nitrified surface, 62-64 HRC, milled instead of sintered, wear lifetime > 100k mls and a few more gimmicks I'm unable to translate)

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"It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It's called living."
Terry Pratchett

So how good is the standard post 06 one Maz. Mines on 33k+

I asked the exact same question on Sat evening ............... he maybe won't remember though

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2001 X1 2009 1125CR 2006 Uly X3 2010 Uly a fully Maz'd S1 and a 1991 RS1200 Westwind.

I think Gunter posted something about this recently...

viewtopic.php?p=203520#p203520

I believe the issue is when the gear wears, it gets to a point where one tooth breaks off, it falls into the oil pump then locks the pump and all the other teeth get stripped off. This will be the case of any gear that wears...

Saying that, doesn't take much to pull the oil pump every 5000 miles when you change the oil.

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08 Specialized Langster