Ticking Bonneville

I own a 2008 Triumph Bonneville T100, purchased new in November of that year.

Like many ownwers I wanted it to sound origional so opted for the Triumph aftermarket pea shooter pipes that look like the stock item.

They came with the Triumph computer download as required (dealer fitted).

After a few miles I noticed that the right hand baffle was rattling inside the silencer. Apart from that they sounded fantastic.

I swiftly returned to the dealer who ordered another set and duly fitted them. Fantastic sound just like the first set.

As I got to know the bike I started to hear an annoying ticking when decelerating at average speeds. It sounded like it was a loose tappet.

I went back to the dealers who immidiatelly agreed something was amiss. After various checks I was informed that the ticking was a condenser choke(butterfy) mounted underneath the tank which restricted the fuel injectors and regulated the fuel.

The ticking was caused by the aftermarket pipes. Enquries with Triumph revealed that they were aware of the issue but didn’t know why it was happening on some bikes and not on others.

To cut a long story short they said it was harmless.

It became so annoying that the nice roar of the pipes was spoilt bt the irritating ticking noise. With the good will of the dealer, who was totally sympathetic to my cause, they re-installed my original pipes and re-loaded the original computer download.

I swapped the loud ones for some nice leather panniers. Once the original pipes were back on the loud ticking disappeared.

My theory is that unlike carbs, fuel injection cant be tweaked, so if you happen to get some silencers with a bit more or less stuffing, the standard download is not capable of accommodating the variation, hence the condenser thingy opening and shutting to accommodate.

I have seen blogs on the internet about Bonnie owners reporting this ticking and many discuss tappet issues as the source.

It would be interesting to hear if your readers have had any issues or in fact if triumph have yet come up with a soloution to this little known phenomenon.

Kind regards, Andy, Huddersfield.