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Coolant burning


Epyon007

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My baby is put to bed for the winter but all last season I had a slight burnt coolant smell, especially when I would get off the bike to open the garage door and come back to the bike.  I could find no outward signs of a leak.  It always seemed to run fine and never over heated.  Temps were basically the same no matter how hard I rode (not very hard actually) or what the temp was outside. 

 

I seem to recall hearing something about a hose by the throttle bodies that would leak.  What kind of good times am I in for on that?  Or would you recommend some other places that are popular leak locations.  Thanks!!

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If it's never been done you need to give all the hose clamps a turn. One is likely weeping around the thermostat, under the throttle bodies.

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On 12/13/2016 at 5:36 PM, RDMcD said:

If it's never been done you need to give all the hose clamps a turn. One is likely weeping around the thermostat, under the throttle bodies.

I second this theory.  My '98 didn't stop leaking when I tightened the hose clamps by the thermostat, though.  I replaced all the hoses in the center of the "V" and changed the thermostat.  No more leaks.

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I have a feeling this will end up like my SV650.  It leaked where the fuel went between the throttle bodies.  The house looked perfect but after I replaced it, no more leak.

 

Does anyone have a picture of this area minus the air box of course?

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Sorry about the mess, this was just after purchasing.

Someone had used red heater hose to replace old lines. Not good. I replaced them with silicone lines.

Also check the 90 degree fittings from said lines to each head. they have o rings that get hard and brittle.

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I had much the same experience as RDMcD. I replaced all of the hoses around the thermostat with OEM parts to fix the leak. My leak sprung up after I had lowered the radiators to access the front valves. As a suggestion, replace the thermostat at the same time, these also fail with age, and as you'll discover, pulling the airbox/throttle bodies and 4 million hoses out is less fun than it sounds, so you'll only want to do it once. DAMHIK.

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But was your bike losing coolant ?  It could be as simple as a little corrosion under a hose clamp causing a micro leak. But if no coolant loss then no worries.  That said these bikes are now quite old & the space under the tank is rarely seen never mind cleaned & checked.  There are also two hoses to the throttle bodies that heat them & the cold start wax unit.

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I can't 100% confirm that it was losing coolant.  Only because hadn't been able to check it often enough.  I never SAW any evidence (smoke, drips or runs) that it was but I could smell it.  Which is why I was voting for up in the V.  I will be paying better attention to it this year.  The Coolant over flow was basically empty so I took that as another sign that it was being burnt but the temp ranges stayed consistent all year.   

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I only had a tiny leak in the V, not enough for much external evidence aside from some white staining on the collector, and the reservoir did not noticeably drop in level. The real giveaway was when I hosed some water through the V and it came out a bright green colour. 

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1 hour ago, Epyon007 said:

Like you flushed out the center of the vee with water, which flushed a pool of coolant out?

Yes exactly that.

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  • 1 year later...

Well this winter I got a puddle of coolant under the bike.  So I'm taking it apart now.  I'm currently down to the throttle bodies.  I don't have a screw driver long enough to get the throttle bodes off so I need to run to the store tomorrow to get one.  I can see that there has been coolant in the V.  Besides tightening up clamps is there anything else I should replace while I'm in there?  I'm going to remove the PAIR valve also.  After starting this project I want to shoot myself in the face.  It's as much of a mess under there as under the hood of a 80's Jaguar.

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Well I got the throttle bodies off and here is what I have found.  Now I have not decided if I'm keeping this bike yet so that is coming into play here.  If I was keeping it I would replace all the hoses, thermos, thermos o-ring, and the o rings on the pipe exits on the heads.  The hoses don't look especially terrible, which leads me to think I should just do the thermostat and the O-ring.......

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well all done!  I got the parts and swapped everything out.  Cleaned, scraped and sanded things down to get as good of a clean surface as possible.  Put it all together and fired up right away.  I was quite happy as I had taken it all apart a week ago and let it sit.  Thanks fully I didn't have too much brain decay over the week.  Here are some pics of 20 year old gaskets.  I'm VERY happy that I bought all new O-rings for the flanges.  I got new of the two short hoses that go from the heads to the thermostat.  Those didn't look bad but they were only like 5 bucks each.  So far not issues getting up to temp or anything.  I need to read about burping the system next.  Then install my new grips, lube my cables and decide if I'm going to send out my forks to DMr to have the cartridges installed or just sell the carts and the bike.........

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Oh and bought velocity stacks thinking mine were stripped out but they aren't so if anyone needs a set of stacks $20 bucks plus freight and your in the zone!

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