FZRSupport: the FZROnline Archive

Hello all

Having a few issues with the bike I had it running great until I stripped it down for a repaint

when putting the coolant back in I could not put same amount I collected when I drained it out

the bike ran great a few days ago but I did notice a small coolant leak from one of the pipes going from the thermostat to the radiator.. so before putting the bike away for the night I tightened up this jubilee clip creating a good seal the leak has now stopped

I then got the bike out last night after checking the coolant levels and then starting it up the bike seemed to have a strange noise coming from the radiator exhaust header pipe area checked for any obvious things and everything seemed in check this noise continued and seemed to be the radiator cooling system

Went for a careful ride around my local area for around 10 minutes if that and the bike started dieing on me when and then completely cut out at the lights

The engine got very hot to the touch in such a small space of time at pretty low revs it got to the stage of cutting out completely and did not want to start again I believe it overheated

My question is does this sound like a coolant air lock? Seeing as it seemed to get so hot and I still got around 1/4 of the coolant I couldn't put in

Cheers Dave

Yes; that sounds like an air lock to me.

Overheating to the point of cutting out and refusing to restart does not bode well either.

I would have thought with 25% of the coolant drained out not being returned to the system you would have
investigated rather than run it.

I always run them at idle on the paddock stand after a coolant refill and keep a close eye on the temp gauge and overflow bottle.

I agree, if you ran an engine with a coolant / air lock until it died, you probably killed your engine. Even if it starts back up there's a good chance there's a blown head gasket or a cracked block. If it still runs, sometimes there's no way to tell until you start seeing oil in your coolant.

Anyway, take out your thermostat, fill the system up and try to run it with the cap off. When the coolant starts to expand and threatens to spill out of the radiator, shut it off. Let it cool, top with fluid and install the cap. At some point down the road you will want to reinstall your thermostat but first see if your bike is still working.