posted by fullsick 11 July 2006
Fired up the red Tornado on the weekend and noticed a bit of a noise from the alternator area at idle. Had a bit of time up my sleeve so I pulled it off and found the pulley on the alternator was loose, had about 6mm end float due to a loose pulley nut. Workshop manual has no end float measurements that I could see, so I tightened it up and reinstalled... Heaps quieter now. Might check the silver bike's alternator this weekend. Has anyone been here before?

reply by engenia 11 July 2006
JohnnyO can confirm this, but I seem to remember that this is one of the failure modes of the 2nd gear on the clutch basket. If the alternator gear is loose, the clutch basket gear wears, and eventually fails. It's documented here. This happened to dean100yz earlier this year.
I believe there was a recall on this. The Aussie frame Numbers under recall can be found here
Check the clutch basket gear as well.

JohnnyO's reply 11 July 2006
Yep that's right, all the early Tornado's that came to Australia were supposed to have a lock washer fitted to the generator coupling retaining bolt by the selling dealer, Adrian at Moto Heaven should know about that, he was at Cruiz Motorcycles when I sent the lockwasher kits to all the dealers.
If I was you, I'd be removing the clutch basket and inspecting the mid size gear on the back of it; the loose generator bolt will cause abnormal wear on the gear PLUS you should check the thickness (width) of the gear as some early models had a narrow gear that can fly apart.