my motor sounds normal, idling and up through the gears for the most part, but when it gets to where it has leveled off such as 68mph in high gear ti has a rattle sounds like bb's i cant find it, it does it in all of the gears about the same rpms, i have checkd everything, buyt sitting still cant make it do it! has anybody had a simular experience, changed oil, checked the gear oil, headlight is tight, maybe needs valve adj, i dont know!

Take your gas tank off and tip it front to back and side to side.

My fuel level float came loose and sounded similar.

I had a similar noise issue whic turned out to be head light placement in the bucket. I'm a fool, good luck gettin it sorted out!
Happy riding!

If you dont find anything loose on the bike then since it sounds like bb's/metallic type noise when in high gear under more load crusing at approx 70 mph it cold be detonation due to poor quality fuel even though the R*'s llow 8.3 comp dosent require a lot of octane.

BTW,how old is the fuel and what oct lvl is it,87 /89 and does it have ethenol in it too?

If it seems to be running ok and you dont think it's valvetrain nose then run the fuel pretty low and try filling up with 1 step higher in fuel grade/octane lvl like for example from 87 to 89 from different gas station this time arroud too.

If that doesnt fix it then maybe you do have a mehcnical issues in top end/valvtrain of the motor that needs to be checked out.

But chk out the easy things first like loose parts and or just got a bad load of fuel which is esp true if running an aftermarket ign like dyna 3000 with let say 36 deg adv that could possibly detonte.

My 06 with stock ign box can detonate on occasion with 87 fuel when under more load in 5th gear but never with 89 oct fuel all having 10% ethenol where i live,i now run 89 oct fuell all the time to avoid detonation which over time can damage a motor.

Excessively lean carb fuel calibration could also lead to detonation in some cases too weahter it be due to improper carb setup for pipes your running and or poss intake/vacuum leak which could lean out fuel mixture.

Scott

thanks, new gas, it sounds like it might be the gastank, will try anything, noise drives me carzy, and not a far trip, the motor runs good, lots of power, sitting still holding the fuel up around 100 rpms & up no rattle just when going through the gears,, maybe it is the gas tank, when i find out i will post, anymore please help, what sya you BB, it does not do it under a lod, when then motor & spped all levels off, when its not pulling, i call it flattening out,

Had a similar noise on mine
turner out it was just a heat sheild on the pipe had worked loose

The loose float bowl in tank sound like a possibility, first off ( Im sure you've already done this) is check your fastners from front to back and any bolted on parts, check your air filter mounts as well

noises are natural until somthing falls off, which doesnt typically happen unless you touched somthing before now.

get somone to ride along side you and see if they can't narrow down the location of the noize.

Try inside the headlight bucket. I had a similar problem, turned out to be one of the headlight keeper springs. Shot of WD-40 took care of it.

These motors thrash quite a bit. A lot of rotating metal going on there (cams, lifters, tappets, gears etc.) and add the solid mounting of the engine to the frame and it is amplified throughout the bike. I found that the Ams/Oil 20/50 reduced the rattle factor quite a bit for me. I don't worry about it as it is consistant and when it sounds different, I will start to be concerned. When I first got my 99R* I thought it sounded like it was about to come apart and had the same concerns as you. Most of the HD and other bikes I test rode sounded similar more or less. Remember that the engine is wide open and close to you so you will here everything going on within, not like a well insulated car where you don't here anything but whats tuned in on the XM radio.

scratching my head now, after weeks of living with the rattle it has cleared up, last saturday i gave it a bath, did not even crank it washed and rolled back, this morning no rattle, oh well sometime i would rather be lucky than good, might have been the headlit after all!