Whining and ticking from the Engine

This has always been a problem with my bike ever since I got it. At idle there always seems be be a ticking sound coming from the engine and when in low gear there is a whining sound with the ticking sound.

I had the valves adjusted by a local mechanic about 4 months ago and the header cap has a good gasket and gasket sealer. The header gaskets have also been replaced.

Has anyone else had this problem?

 

The whine you are hearing could simply be the hypoid drive gear noise that is characteristic to these bikes. Some of us have come to love the sound (I am one of these).
As for the ticking, I'd worry about correct valve clearance (not all mechanics get the shim bucket adjustment system) and a possible predetonation ping. Get out a long screwdriver and use it to listen to the engine and localize the source of the sound (or as close as you can get).
Report your findings.

 

How do I use a long screw driver to listen to the engine? Do I use it like a tuning fork and just lay it above the pistons and see which one is causing the problems?

 

You can use a wooden dowel, broom handle, hammer handle, the same way.
Put one end in your ear the other end on the motor in different places.
In this way you can find exactly were the noise is coming from.

 

Some valve noise is going to be normal. Took me a while to get used to it and be convinced. Using the "probe" you can isolate the noise and see if it's the valves or not.

 

Loose valve maybe. pull the valve cover and check clearances. If too loose you'll have to get the right shim in there.

 

I took a long socket extender and scoped it around my engine. All the intake and export valve locations seem to be making the same noise. All the plugs seem to be making a nice pulsing noise as well. Could it just be that it's just a sound I'm not used to?

 

I'm going to take my valve cap off and check the clearances anyway just to be sure. My book says they need to be between .011 and .015mm. Do I want them to be exactly in the middle or does it matter if they're right on the edge?

 

They wear tighter so common wisdom is shim to the loose, but I think the looser they are the more noise they make.

They do make a pretty good racket and Rick likes to say some noises are good noises.