I worked on a friends K1200GT this weekend. He had put in a new radiator before riding from Fresno to King City last Friday afternoon. While riding Saturday it overheated and coolant was puking out the left side of the bike. He had it dropped at my place and rode my RT back home to come back this week and trailer it back home etc.
Yesterday I took messed around with it and found the big spring clamp on the upper left big hose exiting the radiator was not on and sitting in the middle of the hose and a bunch of grey grease like material dripping down the left edge of the radiator. Also, only about a quart of nasty grey fluid came out of the system when I drained it.
So, I poured some distilled water into the radiator and rinsed it out best I could, put the clamp back on, checked all hose and wire connections I could see and carefully put the correct amount of coolant into the system.
I then performed a number of heating cycles at idle where I would then shut it down when the fan came on and then let it cool to ambient on the side stand. After the third cycle, the radiator stayed full.
However, during these cycles I could not get the upper left big hose connection on the radiator to stop weeping. I massaged it, greased the outside of the hose, and eventually put a big screw style clamp on it but the pressure in that location was too high. On the road the temp gauge would not read higher than 1/4 but when stopped at the end of the short test rides the temp climbs quickly to 1/2 and the fan comes on. At this point its clear there is a lot of pressure in the system at that hose location.
I am sure I have the system 100% filled with coolant. Is this a thermostat issue? It seems like coolant is not circulating properly.
Yesterday I took messed around with it and found the big spring clamp on the upper left big hose exiting the radiator was not on and sitting in the middle of the hose and a bunch of grey grease like material dripping down the left edge of the radiator. Also, only about a quart of nasty grey fluid came out of the system when I drained it.
So, I poured some distilled water into the radiator and rinsed it out best I could, put the clamp back on, checked all hose and wire connections I could see and carefully put the correct amount of coolant into the system.
I then performed a number of heating cycles at idle where I would then shut it down when the fan came on and then let it cool to ambient on the side stand. After the third cycle, the radiator stayed full.
However, during these cycles I could not get the upper left big hose connection on the radiator to stop weeping. I massaged it, greased the outside of the hose, and eventually put a big screw style clamp on it but the pressure in that location was too high. On the road the temp gauge would not read higher than 1/4 but when stopped at the end of the short test rides the temp climbs quickly to 1/2 and the fan comes on. At this point its clear there is a lot of pressure in the system at that hose location.
I am sure I have the system 100% filled with coolant. Is this a thermostat issue? It seems like coolant is not circulating properly.