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I will definitely take this to the local airhead guru this week, but do any of you know what causes a pinging on one side?
My 1992 R100GS has had this noise for some time now and replacing worn valve adjuster screws/nuts has not stopped this.
Could a loose valve seat or worn guides cause this? The pinging is at regular intervals, ping-ping-ping-ping... at idle and then blends into the engine noise at higher rpms. The noise has not gotten louder as time went on but consistent. The bike starts and runs great. If you have any experience with this and have some serious ideas based on this limited info please advise.

Perhaps a push rod is hitting the push rod tube.
One way to find out.
A loose valve seat is likely to come out and cause worse symptoms.

rocker arm end clearance?

"Pinging" is the knocking sound that you get under acceleration that can be caused by too much ignition advance or too high a compression ratio for the gasoline you are running. Is this what you are talking about, or is this a noise that is there all the time, not just under acceleration?

The suggestions above are not really about pinging, so they are assuming you really mean some other noise, but I thought it would be helpful if we found out for sure what you meant.

The pinging or ticking is present at idle. When I put my ear to the valve cover I hear a distinct mechanical ping emanating form the right side, it is not present on the left. This noise was present before I replaced the valve adjuster screws/nuts.

macdaddy wrote:rocker arm end clearance?

+1

esman100 wrote:

macdaddy wrote:rocker arm end clearance?

+1

+2
Your GS is similar to my '87 in that rocker arm end float is adjusted by shims.
If the ticking is consistent I would guess end float.
If it is intermittent/irregular it might be pinging.

Well, tomorrow is airhead maintenance day. Thanks to you I am now aware of rocker arm end float shim adjustment and will investigate this along with adjusting the valves. I will post my findings and thank you all so far.