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oil head temperature in traffic

dj19343

New member
Just wondering ,as a new owner,how long my 2004 rt can sit in bumper to bumper traffic on a warm day (or any day ) before i need to be concerned about overheating the engine? And what should i be on the lookout for ,other than the engine heat indicator rising to let me know i should pull over and shut it down?I've not been stuck in traffic yet and the engine monitor has not gone above five bars.Thanks in advance.
 
Just wondering ,as a new owner,how long my 2004 rt can sit in bumper to bumper traffic on a warm day (or any day ) before i need to be concerned about overheating the engine? And what should i be on the lookout for ,other than the engine heat indicator rising to let me know i should pull over and shut it down?I've not been stuck in traffic yet and the engine monitor has not gone above five bars.Thanks in advance.

Personally, Any time the temp starts edging up into the last 25% on the gauge, I start getting concerned. As for what to be on the lookout for? The temp gauge is all you got. If it does get hot, the sooner you can get some wind rushing over the engine the better off you'll be. Don't be afraid to pull off to a safe spot and wait it out if need be.
 
I've been in that situation a few times.
At border crossings I've always been able to push the bike with the engine off. People don't seem to mind.
Once in a traffic jam I just parked and waited on the shoulder.

The bike will probably stand more than you think but there is definitely a limit.
 
I got caught in the Holland tunnel in May of last year (the holiday weekend) on my '02 RT. I managed to totally max out the temp guage right at the bottom of the tunnel. Fortunately the traffic started flowing then (there was a car stalled right at the bottom). It cooled down quickly as I started moving again.
The bike didn't skip a beat, although my heart was in my throat for the last 15 minutes of the descent.
 
Mine gets near the top in traffic jams, in summer, fairly frequently. Mine already has a cooling fan, but it doesn't kick on until I'm a couple of bars from the top, and doesn't appear to really do much. I run synthetic oil.
 
Around here, it would be downtown LA in the summer.
Besides the bars on the RID, if the engine is in distress, you'll feel the idle start to miss a bit, and low-RPM running (off-idle & inching forward) will be a little rough. If you know what the bike "normally" feels like, you'll feel the difference instantly. It cools down quickly if you keep the oil (and air) circulating, or just pull over & shut down for a couple of minutes.
I run squeezed dinosaurs; no problems.
At border crossings, I've just shut it down... "Hey, that sure is a quiet bike!" "Yeah, it saves on gas, but you ought to see my Wheaties bill!"
 
It does run differently when it's too hot.

Around here, it would be downtown LA in the summer.
Besides the bars on the RID, if the engine is in distress, you'll feel the idle start to miss a bit, and low-RPM running (off-idle & inching forward) will be a little rough. If you know what the bike "normally" feels like, you'll feel the difference instantly. It cools down quickly if you keep the oil (and air) circulating, or just pull over & shut down for a couple of minutes.
I run squeezed dinosaurs; no problems.

I think I've got a cam chain guide or tensioner on it's last leg and when the bike gets hot, it makes a sound like a spun con-rod bearing. That's my alarm, don't even need to look at the RID to know I've got to cool it off.
 
It gets hot up there???
Get that fixed before it gets worse - if pieces come apart, it can get expensive very quickly... The upgraded tensioner really does quiet things down (and is so easy to do); but if a piece of a guide breaks off, that's not fun.
 
Yes, it gets hot up here.

It gets hot up there???
Get that fixed before it gets worse - if pieces come apart, it can get expensive very quickly... The upgraded tensioner really does quiet things down (and is so easy to do); but if a piece of a guide breaks off, that's not fun.

It gets hot, only lasts about 8 weeks if we are really lucky. Then again, I can walk on water, about 4 months of the year.

The noise, winter project along with rebuilding my tranny.
 
Sorta related...

Big wreck on I-75 years ago in Tennessee , on a very hot day. So I take the shoulder [slowly] & go around the jam till a cop at the scene steps back puts up his hand, says wait right there I'll be with you. Few minutes pass, he comes over, informs me that I'm in violation,and is going to site me. I said well OK...but I'm gonna guess that your ticket is considerably less than the cost of that engine, pointing down [82 Airhead] and I felt safer up here than stuck on the berm back there. He walked over to another officer, then back to direct traffic for a wrecker....then came back to me & said wait until the wrecker is able to move into the next lane , then go....held his hand up , watched the wrecker...then signaled me to go....:thumb
 
On my 94 R1100RSL I would just shut the engine off at long red lights in hot weather. Some of my riding buddies would laugh but it really built up heat fast with that full fairing.


.
 
71243
That's the way cops are supposed to do it. That's the way they usually do it for me.
Last year there was a large truck half off the side up on Highway 4. The people started yelling at me, hey, he (the cop) wants you to go up there. Where he directs me around the wreck.
OP
These are the situations where lane splitting was invented. And invented for.
We've all heard the adage, waste not, want not, and that space between the cars will go to waste if we don't use it.
It isn't that motorcycles get special privileges, it is that motorcycles simply fit thru' smaller places than cars.
dc
 
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