I’m riding my awesome xt660z on a quiet road with the visor open, thinking to myself what a lovely day! And suddenly I hear this noise… a tiny squeak coming out of my dash…. Was it there before or not, I don’t know, but once I started to hear it, I couldn’t unhear it!

I’m trying to ignore it first, thinking maybe some grit got stuck somewhere and rubbing in between two plastics or something – will wash it, and it will go away! But it didn’t…

Few months later, sick and tired of that squeaky noise, decided to investigate and by doing so I took all the front apart and I found a few interesting bits: 1. Windshield was rubbing against the headlight cover, 2. Headlight cover was rubbing against the headlight and the frame, 3. Damping rubbers on the dash were loose and mounting had cracks in them too!

There was a lot of rubbing everywhere! Windshield and headlight cover weren’t very hard to fix, I simply cleaned the parts and glued self adhesive foam here and there in an attempt to stop things from touching directly, and it worked!

However, the dash itself was a bit of a problem as the protruding part where screw grips on to – had small cracks in them. I tried using a bit of glue to stop them from expanding any more, but it did not work. Tried wrapping a bit of electrical tape around them so it sits tighter inside of the rubber dampers, but did not work. Tried different rubber dampers – didn’t work. Tried greasing them – didn’t work! Tried tightening bolts a bit more, but they all just opened up the cracks and nothing else…

So I had to come up with something else, and my solution to this tiny problem was to make a bracket, that would squeeze the dash and the original bracket together, and hopefully that will stop it from moving around and making that terrible squeaky noise! And that’s what i did.. Cut out the square frame that would fit at the back, an oddly shaped bracket for the top of the dash, a couple of holes, bolts and nuts… a lick of black paint so it doesn’t stand out too much, and… it worked like a dream!

A bit overcomplicated solution to a simple problem like that but, finally I can keep riding my xt on the quiet roads with open visor without being distracted by silly squeaky noises!