Clunking noise

[Cyrock]

I have a 78e with 30,000 miles and I hear clunk when I roll off the throttle in 1st or 2nd gear. Sounds like a car with a bad universal joint. It gets louder when I have a passenger. Anyone have an Idea what it might be?

[xssiveone]

And that's exactly what it could be, but there is a more common problem to check first.

Have you greased the splines on your drive shaft lately? And I don't mean by the grease fitting on the swing arm either, that won't put the grease where you want it. You have to remove the rear wheel, and then the final drive. The end of the drive shaft is hollow, with splines. The input shaft on the final drive has matching splines.. clean everything good, and then apply fresh grease to the inside of the end of the drive shaft. Manual calls for molybendumdisulphide(I just KNOW I spelled that wrong) grease.

[Cyrock]

Yes I did grease splines on the drive shaft. The splines looked good and I did hand pack the drive shaft when I put the rear wheel back on.

It sounds like the clunk is coming from the front of the bike not the rear. The bike has always shifted loud but everything I've read about the bike says thats normal.

[xssiveone]

Does it clunk in a roll-on throttle as well, or just a roll-off? If it's coming from the front, then maybe something is hitting as the supension moves up and down. Try recreating it wit the motor off, move the front up and down and see if you can hear it then.

You mentioned the universal joint, it's not impossible that it's making noise, but it's not very common.

[DiverRay]

When did you last drain and fill the middle gear? If you have too much side play, you may be getting the "clunk" from the 90 degree gears there.
Ray

[Ken Talbot]

You can also get a clunk noise if the spline goes dry where the rear wheel fits onto the final drive. There is no grease fitting for this spot, and it is not the kind of place where one part is moving back and forth a lot against another, so it sometimes gets overlooked for grease.