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Hello All, Just did a thorough coolant flush and renew on my "new" 5th gen 1998 and set out the steps below. Hope it helps someone out. High mileage bike with what looks like poor maintenance. Thank God it's a Honda or it would be scrap by now. Anyway, I began by pulling the side fairings (I'm doing other work - you don't have to remove all the fairings like I did) and putting the bike on its side stand to drain the old fluid. Note the extreme lean angle achieved by finding a nice dip for the side stand. You can also just muscle the bike over to the left whilst lifting the front wheel. Easier than you might think. I found having the bike on an uphill slope drained the most coolant. To to drain the system remove the "odd" 5th bolt and washer on the thermostat (right hand side, near your foot peg). Place a container underneath and slowly unscrew the coolant filler cap. Unscrewing the cap lets air enter the system and it flushes really fast. WARNING: this stuff shoots about 4 feet! There is also a coolant drain bolt under the front left exhaust downpipe which is awkward to reach but also dribbles a bit of fluid if you really want to get every last drop out. I did, but it may not be necessary on a well maintained machine. Finally, detach the hose from the overflow bottle on the left and let that drain. It just pulls off easily. In all, I only got about 1.75 litres (nearly 1/2 gallon) of fluid out. The bike takes twice that to fill so clearly a maintenance fail by PO. Coolant looked red and dirty. Now the technical bit. I replaced all bolts/hoses and refilled the system slowly with equal mix of distilled water and white vinegar. Vinegar helps remove hard water deposits and scale from aluminium and is used to clean coffee machines. The engine was set to idle and vinegar mix circulated for a while to thoroughly clean the system internally. I ensured the thermostat kicked in and juice was fully circulated by waiting until the cooling fan kicked in. Another way to check is by massaging the cooling system hoses and feeling when they warm up. Or you can look down the filler neck and see the fluid flow. After it cools you drain the system again as described. Strong vinegar smell and coolant was full of crud that the acid had cleared out. Really happy with results. Now I had to neutralise the acid from the vinegar (don't want that corroding the aluminium) so I mixed up some Soda Crystals in distilled water and filled her up again. Soda is a base and will neutralise the vinegar's acid. Luckily soda is a buffered base so you can't add too much - it never overdoes it. I poured it through an old sock to filter out any undesolved soda crystals. Ran the soda water to full temp as before, let cool and drain. Weaker vinegar smell came out and the coolant looked like it had collected a bit more crud so I was very pleased. Next step is to rinse the soda residues out so filled the system up with 100% distilled water and ran it for some time. Let cool and drain as before. This time I poured a few jugs of distilled water through the system with the drain bolts out, just to flush straight through. Fitted new bonded washers to the drain bolts because someone had been a bit heavy-handed tightening them and I could feel the threads were damaged. The bonded washers seal easier than copper washers (don't need as much tightening) which gives the threads a break. Steel bolts into alloy is always a recipe for disaster so I do the same with my sump plugs. Really saves the threads. Ran a die tap over the bolts to straighten the threads and applied a light smear of copper ease. Good as new. Remember to burp you cooling system by blipping the throttle hard a couple times and massaging the hoses. Cranking the bike over sideways also helps get air bubbles out. Pouring the coolant in slowly (no glugging) is also helpful. Now the the system is perfectly cleaned and I am confident in it once more. Happy days! Stray

Noticed a few drops of dried coolant on the inside of the fairing just under the water pump. The water pump drain bolt also had some dried coolant, but it was snug. Checked the Service Manual, and it states: After finding the inspection hole with an inspection mirror, I found more dried coolant (see photo). This was taken after a short ride with the bike at operating temperature. So is it time to replace my water pump? Bike is 11 years old with 13,xxx miles. Coolant was replaced about three years / 4,000 miles ago. Thanks!

Hi Ya'll, Anyone have ideas on how to diagnose a 'hot' engine? '99 5th gen. is running close to a temp of 100C at highway speeds (95-99C) aka 212F. I know it's no cause for alarm as it's a ways away from the max, however, usually this time of year (27C aka 80F ambient) it runs between 78-85C aka 172-185F. The other weird thing is that the coolant reservoir was empty after I had filled it a few days ago. Here are the symptoms: - Before I noticed the higher temps - I saw it was low on coolant. I filled it (using Honda brand coolant) in between the lower and upper lines when the bike was cold. After filling, the next ride it leaked a ton of coolant in stop n go traffic (another rider pointed it out). Figured I put too much in and the bike would find a happy balance on it's own. The next few days I noticed the higher temp at highway speeds. I checked the coolant level again - this time - dry as a bone. How? Why would the bike leak out the entire reservoir? Oil level is fine (was changed a few weeks ago). The fins on the rads look okay but haven't taken the fairing off to get an up close and personal look. The fan kicks in at the correct temp and is working fine. What else should I be checking? What explains the coolant levels of first overflowing and then being empty?

Hello All, I bought a VTR pusher fan to replace the puller fan on my 5th gen (thanks to this forum!). The seller had a 2011 Yamaha R1 BIG BANG coolant cap on the shelf so I grabbed it for £5, just for a laugh. Well, it fits the 5th Gen (and probably other models too)! Here are a few side-by-side pics. R1 cap is brighter and VFR cap is darker And here is the R1 cap fitted. I’m guessing this has to be worth about 15HP at least? Maybe more with a Power Commander? At least my 20 year old filler cap has been replaced with something much newer. Pressure settings are the same (1:1 on both labels) but R1 spring and rubber seal are fresher. Now I'm off to win a few GPs... Stray

Does any one know what size oring woukd work for the fan switch that i could buy locally? Honda part is 13.5 x 1.4. I am trying to not have to have something shipped.

was wondering what everyone suggest for just general maintenance as well as had a few questions too! I have a 1997 vfr and the previous owner had just water instead of coolant and I want to switch it to coolant: 1.) where is the coolant reservoir located? 2.) do I need to drain the water first or can I add coolant to it? what can I add to the gas I read once about something that can keep it from getting gunked up I'm going to be away from the bike awhile, a friend is gonna take care of it and run it a bit but i still just want to be sure! I'm new to this so literally any advice would help! Thanks!!

Anyone ever use use this product? Or have experience good or not so good?

I was tracking down a coolant leak on a new to me 2000 VFR. What a chore. Looks like the PO that had the bike just pinched or nicked a hose from the water pump to the wax thingy on top of the throttle body. The bike would lose pressure at 15.5 PSI but would hold just under that. It wasn't overheating but I could smell coolant and in heavy traffic it did run hot. Looks like its been leaking a while. I see some dried coolant on some hoses but that could be old. Anything else to check? So while the throttle body is off the bike should I replace the hoses in the V of the motor? The bike is 15 years old. I know I need to change out the lines to the wax thingy to be safe. Anything else I should do while i'm in there? I'm keeping this bike forever. Thanks... Total for the hoses is about $97.00 shipped..

I recently purchased a 2005 VFR800 (approximately 20K miles on the odometer). I had ridden it and found out it wasn't running properly, sometimes idling at almost 4K rpms when warm (wax unit failure) and not fully heating up to temperature when riding/left radiator getting hot before thermostat opening temp range (thermostat failure). I did drained the coolant which appeared to be the original blue/green Honda coolant and there was some dark colored gunk in the overflow tank. I have disassembled the bike to replace the thermostat and wax unit. When inspection the removed wax unit I can't see through the inside of the wax unit and I see a bit of the the same dark colored gunk that was in the overflow tank. My questions are: Should you be able to see through or blow through the wax unit? It appears mine is 100% plugged up. What position should the wax unit be in when cold? (Extended or Retracted) What is the dark colored gunk in the coolant overflow and wax unit?

Whats up fellas - sorry for the newb question (two actually) I've been searching and found some info but I still need to ask. I'm moderately mechanical (I do my own basic maintenance: oil & fluids, check valves, carb sync, nothing major) and today was the first time I've ever done a coolant flush n fill. haha I come from the world of air-cooled bikes, so this is kinda new to me. 1) Are there any specific symptoms after a FnF that will tell me air is in the system? The tutorial i watched said to overfill the reservoir by 1" and that would take care of any air bubbles, but I'm more concerned with an air lock. My old bike used to need to be burped every time I changed the oil - I'm curious if this may need the same thing. 2) what is the easiest way to burp it? I've read starting the bike and let it reach operating temp w/ the rad. cap loose, I've read to squeeze the hoses, I just don't want to do the wrong thing or damage the motor. Thanks in advance everyone I really appreciate it!!!!!!!!!!!

I started to smell coolant after turning off my bike a few days ago with no drips on the floor. Today, I pulled the plastic and looked in the V behind the reserve tank and saw that an area where one of the hoses connects to the thermostat looks to be leaking. Here is a picture from the other side of the bike. You can see the leak behind the thermostat on the right side. So my question is, how hard is it to get to this area to fix? or maybe the real question is how easy is it the mess up the stuff I have to take off to get at this? Thanks

Hey, two quick easy ones. One, is old 50/50 premix coolant ok to use? Not used, just old - some in an open container, some in a sealed one. Probably a couple years old. Aassuming this stuff is clean, should be ok? Two, any reason I can't mix Honda with Maxima Coolanol? Thanks. Told you they were easy! Aram