There are several methods shown in the archives to fix a speedometer rattle.  This isn't necessarily the best method, but it does have the advantage of completely getting rid of the springs as they really don't have enough compression strength to do much of anything useful.

The flip side is that this fix allows you to put more force on the speedometer and the mount legs.   Since the speedo is semi-flimsy plastic construction you need to be mindful of the torque you put on those little nuts -- stay at moderate finger pressure using a bare long socket extender bar, please.  A 3/8" wrench-type handle could be really too strong much much too easily.

Take your tank off and take your speedo out.  Clean things up a bit so you can see the fret wear marks where the steel tank tabs wore into the steel speedo mounting legs.  These fret zones likely were the source of some of your noise, especially the one on the long unsupported steel speedo leg (you can just see that long skinny thing vibrating like a banjo string in your mind's eye).

Go to the auto parts store and get a foot or so of 3/8" heavy wall fuel line and a foot of 1/4" heavy wall fuel line.  Take your speedo with you, it will make picking things out a good bit easier.

The larger fuel line will slip over the bare steel leg, the larger supporting round plastic leg and go all the way down until it hits the bottom where the main housing starts.   The OD of my large hose was 0.630" or there-abouts (fuel hose is sized by the nipple size it goes over, so don't expect it to make a lot of sense measurement numberwise).




The smaller 1/4" fuel line measures 0.500" or thereabouts on the OD.  Note that  both hoses have the nylon reinforcment threads internal to their construction.

Now cut the larger fuel hose to a length that goes from the bottom of everything up slightly past the fret mark on the unthreaded steel shaft part of each individual leg.  You want your large hose to be taller than the fret mark.  You want the hose to compress a tad when it gets tightened up, so it has to be a little bit longer than the fret mark distance (maybe 1/16" longer or 0.060" if you like digital measurements).  Each of the three legs is different, so you will cut 3 custom leg covers out of the bigger tubing.  

I can't give you a distance, every tank has the steel tabs on the tank welded on at slightly different points.  Your fret marks tell you about your tank and the needed distances.

Now cut the smaller tubing to take up the distance between the big tubing and the start of the first thread (leaving off 1/8" for the tank tab thickeness and the washer thicknesses).   Each of the three small tubes is a different length too.  Note: you can post-tune these lengths later to jive with reality -- I had to.




Take your silicone RTV gasket stuff and pack it into the gap between the steel shaft and the tubing until you totally fill that little shoulder space and mound up a little heap so it will flatten & squish good when you bolt her up.  Leave this sit in open air for at least 1/2 to 1 hour so the silicone will firm up some -- important step to let it firm up some.  This gel time will change according to your local temperature and humidity.




While your silicone is setting up on the speedo, prep your gas tank mounting tabs with some silicone too.  On the front tab (towards your belly when riding) remember to put a wad of silicone on the tank wall next to the tab as the large round tubing will reach all the way over to this solid wall to make up a "controlling contact point" which will greatly reduce the chances of anything moving around later on.  Give it a nice silicone bed to go to sleep in.




Long half to one hour, wasn't it?  Slide it all together, put the small tubes in place and put the washers and nuts on.  PLEASE REMEMBER TO GO EASY ON THE NUT TENSION - 2 to 3 INCH POUNDS MAX.  You actually can put force on the legs now so you can damage them if you go overboard.   Pull the nuts down until the rubber gasket on the outer flange of the speedo (the outside part you normally look at) pulls down to the tank all the way around and things firm up when pushing on the speedo from the outside (you know, like you used to do all the time to get it to shut up that hideous buzz/rattle noise).

Revisit the little nuts again after a half hour and snug them back up  (they will relax as the silicone squishes up the shafts and out the gaps).   Do it again in another half hour.  Now wait longer and come back again in another hour and snug up any more slack that has developed.   You will notice that slack isn't coming back like it used to -- time to STOP TIGHTENING THE NUTS.  

Then give it overnight or 24 hours to harden up where it is now (let the RTV seize up on the shaft real good, check the little nuts again for firmness (2-3 inch pounds) and put your tank back on the bike.

Oldfeller

Now that you fixed your speedo rattle, you are likely to hear some of the other rattles and knocks that were being drowned out before by the louder & more persistent speedo rattle noises that you just fixed.

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There is a headlight rattle -- take the two screws off on the bottom of the headlight and take the ring assembly off the hollow housing.  First, make sure all your loose wires, guts and connectors are being held down correctly by the wire ties & such and are not kicking around loose.   Tuck them in nicely and tighten those wire ties down over them to hold them properly in place.

Any remaining headlight rattle most likely comes from the single steel hook on the top side of the ring assembly where it has made itself some vibratory clearance to the single ribbed boss on the top of the plastic hollow housing.  Apply a dab of red silicone gasket sealant to the sheet metal hook so when you put it together it makes a silicone rubber buffered seal to the ribbed plastic boss.   You will be able to take this apart later, just go gently when you go about doing it as that piece of plastic is worth WAY TOO MUCH MONEY -- so please don't force it and break it.   The silicone will let go first, be patient.

Appended from another post on the subject


ridemore wrote on 07/01/12 at 15:38:44:


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Next you may still hear a hard steel on steel bang-knock sound that only takes place under hard throttle acceleration (same sort of acceleration things that gave you your headlight rattle).  It is your main motor mounts that have loosened up on you a bit banging against your through bolts and frame holes.   These big arsed through bolts are the two BIG bolt/acorn nuts that also hold up your steel foot peg castings on either side of your scoot.  Get out your big wrenches and sockets and tighten those two suckers back up nice and tight again.

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Your engine can make a VERY LOUD hard knock sound of its own if you are lugging it too low RPM-wise and hitting the throttle too hard causing a gigantic piston/explosion/spark knock sound.

Stop doing that -- let your engine rev up freely before hitting the throttle back all the way.  Your motor will thank you for doing this and NOT causing that destructive hard motor knock sound.   You also shake things to pieces when you do that -- see the list of things you just had to fix if you don't believe me.

Think what it's doing to your cam chain and your other internal parts .....

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That's all the noises I've heard so far.  If there are more that show up later I'll add them to this list.

Oldfeller

Digger,

You bought all that stuff to go under, on top of and inside the stock steel speedo springs?

Are the steel springs still trying to hold the speedo in place by their very weak compressive force as you go over the bumps?  Is the speedo still able to move the rods up and down, up and down in the tab slots?  Can the edges of the steel tank tab slots still contact the steel rods?

(we had identified the very low force springs as a persistent "weak link" and had removed them from the mounting system accordingly.  We finally figured out the steel tank tab slots contacting the steel rods as the root cause of the rattle noise)

Have you proven out this new method over a period of time before listing it in the Tech Section or is this a new method you just put together just recently?

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I was going to reference you back to the rather long developement discussions on the tubing method's development, but heck, SEARCH can't find the original base thread any more.  It seems to be gone.  And I remember the silicone and rubber method post being a good bit longer when originally done, too with a lot more pictures.  

Key point about the tubing method is it gets rid of the steel springs completely and it does not allow the steel rods to move relative to the steel tank tabs (which is where we all thought the rattle really originated from).  People also tried wrapping the steel rods in tape, but the tab edge cut right through every sort of tape that was tried.

How does your method keep tank tab slot edges from contacting the speedo steel rods?    

Digger, your method likely is just fine but it sorta bugs me not to be able to locate the base "detailed" discussions behind the silicone & tubing method vs its predecessors.  This is another issue with the site getting older and relatively "large" compared to the Yabb BBS system's limits.  

We seem to be losing the ability to search/find some of our "history" due to lack of something .....  such is life.

Soon enough our tech stuff will appear to just sit out there with no pics and no background discussion to wade through to see "the rest of the story".

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Here is what I like about your method, should it prove out to be long term durable and all.  
You can take it back apart very easily.

All previous "long term effective" methods to the rubber tube & silicone method involved copious amounts of silicone glopped around the existing steel spring.  These methods sometimes failed over the long haul, but they and the earlier tube methods were somewhat messy to take apart.

Even the tube & rubber method (although cleaner than the other methods) required slicing the silicone at the tab joint to get the unit back apart.

The only plus to be said for the old tube method is it works flawlessly over 2 plus years on multiple multiple bikes and nobody has had to take it apart that I know of yet.

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Another difference between now and back then is Savage Rob used to go though these tech post about every other month and clean up any "discussion" that had crept into them.   The site had a rule back then that limited all discussion to Rubber Side down and Cafe and he would move things accordingly.  He would also tune up your postings sometimes to make it clearer and more concise.

Things are easier now, which is good since the "discussion" part on a tech thread that was forced back then to be separate on a different part of the board has now been lost due to time.

There are some sorts of limits that the site has for both time and content that are based on the overall board "size" that the site has leased off the server farm.  Savage Rob used to prune things in Tech Section selectively and he would edit/condense if he could rather than just cut things off based on age.

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I betcha the details behind the original improved cam chain deal have been lost to history then too.   Savage Greg's stuff is mostly gone now, even when you can find the discussion the pics are gone off to neverland with the exception of some pics that have been rehosted by other people to preserve them.

The search engine is really not able to deal with a search for all boards for all time very well any more --

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To contradict the thought of a total pruning, you can hit Rubber Side Down and hit the very earliest posting available and it goes back to October of 1994.  The stuff is still there, but Search isn't pulling from it very well.

Go figure ...... ??     It's all way over my head.

Now you see why I now try to put a link to the background discussion on any tech posting that was the result of a Rubber Side Down discussion.  And why I don't talk about anything technical in The Cafe at all as it can drop stuff off the face of the earth in as soon as 30 days.

This link is to the ongoing discussion on this topic in Rubber Side Down.  


http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1343967897/0#0


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