As I've spoke from time to time, my bike seems to be one that rattles quite a bit in the cockpit area especially at around 4k rpm. Who knows if it's plastics, or assembly, or maybe my engine vibrates a little more than others. At any rate, this might help some of you out that are searching for elusive rattles. I found two rattles with this method and devised ways to reduce or eliminate them.

Doing it Sherlock Holmes style
So we all have felt around riding. Sometimes this is successful and sometimes not. Here's a tale tale sign of rattles with plastics.

Note the dust around projection. This isn't dust at all. It's plastic that comes from the part vibrating against another part effectively sanding the part as it rattles.

It doesn't show up well in this picture, but sanding dust also accumulated below the mounting bracket.

This is after I wiped the dust off.

Playing Mr. Fixit
In this case I had two issues with this cover. It was vibrating in the metal support at the base, and also then vibrating against the top of the instrument cluster. I chose to drill out the mounting bracket holes and install grommets, and some rubber tube at the top. I didn't want to use something that would hold moisture.

After enlarging these holes and installing the grommets. Make sure you account for the thickness of the grommet when you enlarge the hole.

1" sections of clear tube, sliced. They clamp lightly onto the cover but can pretty easily fall off.

Bracket reinstalled.

With the grommets the cover fit pretty tight, but it's in there. I've rode it a few times now and haven't heard much rattling at this point.

My seat cowl had an annoying rattle. I stuck weather stripping foam under the tabs and that made it go away. My Saddlemen seat also prevents the rattle because the passengers seat is a bit higher and presses up against the seat cowl.

I nearly used the weatherstripping, but wanted to avoid it as it could hold moisture. Also not a fan of sticky things as permanent fixes as they tend to work great at first then glue dry rots and so on (and yes I realize Kaw used some sticky pads... one has already become detached). Temporary or only option, great, permanent not s much.

No. They don't last for ever. You need to replace them. I find that double sided tape to be pretty good for some stuff. it holds the balancing weights on my rims. A rubber plug is preferable as long as you have something it will press into.

A friend recently discovered that the flip lid on his gas cap lock was rattling sat certain rpm. He found the source of the noise by putting the bike on a stand, setting up a fan for some cooling airflow and replicating the circumstances where he was hearing a rattle.

I had a very mild buzzing sound coming from the frontend at right around 4k cruising.Intermittant.It wasn't the tipover sensor...wasn't the windscreen buzzing...just by accident really I went to do something with the LED display/meter.I noticed it had a very small amount of 'play' at the back of the unit.I could push the bottom part of the meter 'in'...didn't seem right to me.I pulled the windscreen off to look back there...the post that connects the unit to the stay had somehow worked itself out just a bit.I installed a small washer on that bolt(as a spacer)...problem solved.

* Last updated by: Grn14 on 12/30/2014 @ 11:21 AM *

I also added rubber grommets to instrument cluster and tip over sensor. But I don't think either were causes of rattling, but the instrument panel had quite a bit of play (16th inch or so). The worst one by far was the windshield cover rattling on the instrument cluster. Holy cripes that was loud and annoying!

She's purring along now though, so I'm confident my workarounds worked!

Tracing down buzzes and rattles is a major PIA. Vic had a great suggestion in looking for the white dust, sure indicator something is rubbing and needs to be fixed. I sometimes use some good quality 3M electrical tape to isolate parts from each other, sometimes use 2-3 layers, usually works good if the gap is small.