Q: My Honda VFR400 has suddenly developed a loud rattle that seems to be coming from the front cylinder head, because as you know it’s a V4 and therefore has two cylinder heads.
I took off the fairing and had a good check around everything I could see, just to see if something had broken and/or fallen off, but found nothing. The rattle was most certainly louder when the fairing was off though.
So I’m a bit worried if something terminal has happened because my VFR has only covered 52,000km over the past ten years or so, and an official Honda dealer has always serviced it at the correct intervals.
So of course I would like to know if you’ve had a similar problem before and if so what was it?
Regards.
David Edgecomb.
A: This sounds to me like a simple cam chain problem and with 52,000km on the clock it’s probably about time to replace both chains for both the front and rear bank of cylinders. However with the rattle suddenly appearing it’s more than likely to be the cam chain tensioner that’s at fault here. It could have stuck/broken and now doesn’t force the blade onto the cam chain anymore or the spring has broken. Either way I’d pull that out first to check it out.
