Creaking forks

[slopster]

Something in my front end makes a loud creaking noise every time I brake hard. Its been doing it for some time and I havn't been able to identify the cause of the trouble. It only does it under really heavy braking and the bike still handles just fine but its a bit unnerving. As far as I can tell the head bearings are ok or at least there doesn't seem to be any movement in there. I've got aftermarket discs with a lot of float in them by design which could be the cause of the noise but I cant really figure out how to isolate that. Have checked everything else it tight. Any advice?

[rocketman1]

Mate,
Have you checked the oil level in the forks? How old is the bike?
I would eliminate that possibility to start with, are the forks seals leaking?
Have checked all your triple clamp bolts, and brakes discs for tightness?

[slopster]

If found the problem. The previous owner of the bike had been a munter and when he put crash bungs on he used the wrong pitch bolt (its an m10 metic fine and he used and standard metric) and dammaged the thread so it wasn't fully tightned. So it was the frame creaking under heavy braking as the engine moved twisted. I've got it sorted with the proper bolt now but theres only about 3 good threads left so I don't know if it will last forever. Might need to get a helicoil put in.

[xwhatsit]

Ah, noises always seem to come from somewhere else... I was interested in this thread as my forks had recently started creaking -- I discovered today it was just the (rooted, rusted) headlight squeaking away when it was jolted. Very confusing.

I hate threads and fasteners and stuff. My bike is the same -- wrong bolts jammed in all sorts of places. Used 10 helicoil coils on the cylinder head alone.