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May have fixed my cooling issue on my 5th gen.


Lint

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I don't know how many have seen my thread or two about cooling issues with my 1999, but it seemed like nothing was working. I've used air conditioner coil cleaner, switched to distilled water and Red Line Water Wetter, etc etc. Still I couldn't get it to cool, even at idle.

Well, since my fairings are off, I happened to notice something about my left radiator and the fan. On top of the radiator is a plastic fan cowl, to block the fan from pulling outside air instead of through the radiator. See part number 9 on the Bike Bandit parts diagram:

 

hj280112.gif

 

Well, there is nothing on the bottom of the radiator and quite a bit of overlap where the fan sticks out past the radiator, which was allowing it to suck a lot of air from the environment, instead of through the fins of the radiator. I didn't think to get a picture of it before I put duct tape on it to create an experimental fan cowl, but here it is in all its backyard mechanic glory:20180130_111139.jpg

 


I know it doesn't look like much because of what tape I had to hand, but for the first time that I can recall, the fan comes on and then actually cools enough to shut down!

I need to finish reassembling it after my crash to see how it works in the canyons, but this is a free first step. I'm going to have to figure out how to fabricate something out of plastic or aluminum, but the amount of air pulling through the radiator is greatly improved! I can actually touch the radiator once the fan clicks off.

And yes, I know the front bottom of the head is dirty. I'm open to suggestions of how to remove 80,550 miles of baked on dirt, etc.

 

 

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As you can tell in the bottom picture, there is a significant amount of open fan that was pulling air below the radiator. Since I have temporarily taped it, ALL of the air is getting drawn through the radiator and it cools much better.  I wonder if the 6th gen is like this too? It's interesting how different the fan sounds now that it is pulling air from through the radiator entirely.

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Thank you.

 

I'm thinking of getting some thin aluminum and seeing if I can fashion some sort of cowling for the bottom of the radiator there. I won't need to be anything particularly strong, just needs to cover that part. I'll keep this thread updated.

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I just looked at my friend's 2002 and it isn't this way on his bike. His fan lines up with the radiator. I don't know, perhaps the previous owner didn't line something up right, I supposed that's possible, the bike was crashed.

Can someone else look at their fan on their 5th and let me know what it looks like there? I have a feeling that this is what's been preventing correct cooling on my bike.

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  • Member Contributer

Good find and idea Lint. This is something I will address when I pull the fairings to replace the cooling hoses. 

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I googled high temp duct tape and it can be found at a number of places. What I've found so far looks to be temperature stable to 600°. If your bike gets that hot, it's on ?!

 

I'm going to redo mine with that. Plus it's chrome colored and extremely sticky. I think what I'm going to do is double up a few pieces and then tape that down to give it more rigidity.

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