Get rid of middle gear whine

Get rid of "middle gear whine" from your vocabulary.

Prove it to yourself that it's really the crank gear / clutch basket gear set that is making all that beautiful music.
If it was the "middle gear" bevel drive set in front of the "U" joint the tone would rise as speed picked up. On our bikes the tone range repeats every time you upshift.
If this sound were made by the 10 transmission gears, it would be a different sound in each gear. It's not.

Hold your brakes, rev to 3,000 and try to set-off for 1 second.
You will hear the whine with the trans AND the middle gear set not moving AT ALL!. What gears are still moving? The crank / clutch gearset.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involute_gear

Straight cut gears must have a little lash considering that the crank is floating on an oil film, and the teeth keep hitting as they engage, this sound would resonate in the clutch basket and the engine case.
So, pick your new favorite term.

 

I'm too old to change.

I have always called it middle gear whine, but let me ask a stupid question. If it's not the middle gear how come chain bikes don't make a similar noise?

 

Yamaha uses spur gears for the primary drive in most of their motorcycles. Spur gears are noisy. They are also very durable and require no service.

Many other manufacturers use a chain primary drive. No whine, but not as durable and may require regular service.

 

I'm sorry but that whine is music to my ears, I love the sound! And I'm sticking with the original term, middle gear whine it is.

 

Pretty sure it's the YICS causing the whine. There's lots of other shaft drive bikes that don't make that sound.

 

The sound being referred to is caused by the crankshaft spur/primary drive gears. The chain-drive 550s don't do it (as noticeably) because their PRIMARY primary drive is by Hi-Vo chain rather than spur gears. (Their "secondary" primary drive IS a spur gear, between the primary-chain driven "jackshaft" and the clutch basket. But the main "primary" drive, from the crank, is a chain rather than gears like on the bigger XJs.)

 

Bro's Virago makes the whine as well, so I think that elimenates YICS only.

 

Thanks Carl very interesting. I knew there was no chain but did not know spur gears were noisy by nature.

I tell you I learn at least 1 new thing every day on this site.

The whine is music to my ears too - I really love the sound.

 

Go see the first post, and try it yourself.
Load the motor without moving, and you hear the whine.
It's the clutch basket to primary gears.

That's my story. . .

 

I've noticed that also and wondered the same thing. Makes sense to me now.

And I like the sound.

 

If you can hear sounds coming from the motor it means your pipes are not loud enough!Lol

 

Ok finally got round to looking in the cluch and now can understand were the wine comes from I remember reading about a model of high performance corvett that they had to use straigh cut gears in the manual transmission to make it stong enough to handle the power from the 454 big block. The gear wine was so loud that the model was sold without a radio as you would not be able to hear it over the transmission, it might have been an S38 or something. Anyway so the wine in my bike is coming from the straigh cut gears joining the crank shaft and the cluch basket. now I have notice some play in the cluch basket which I suspect is due to wear in its cadgerd roller bearing would this be accentuating the wine ? If so would this bearing be readliy available. Did not see any on XJ forever. I don't realy mind the noise but it is just a bit much sometime.

 

If you've got radial play (can move the basket forward, backward, up, down) you need to fix it. Some axial play (in/out) is probably normal.

Radial play probably would be noisy, although I expect the bearing would make as much or more noise than the gears.

 

I have to admit I have no idea what we're talking about. I've loaded up the clutch while holding the brake like the example above, but I wasn't listening for anything, I was just spinning the tire, lol. I'll listen for it next time.

 

it sounds like a supercharger whine, in third gear at least, i like it

 

listen listen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_5wMG5PnkU

 

Yer it is the Primary Drive gears thats just an XJ thing or any other bike that has gears rather than a chain primary drive I recon. Funny since I now know what it is, it does not piss me off anymore. Still don't know if I will learn to love it though.

 

Yeah, I think the whine is actually coming from the mufflers "cause after I took them off I don't hear it anymore! :lol:

 

The official name for that sound is, "They all do that sir."

 

We get to hear helical gears meshing under power.

We don't have to:
Oil a chain
Adjust chain slack.
Replace the chain.
Replace Drive and Wheel Sprockets.