At my wits end

[bweight]

Alright, as some of you know from talking to me in chat and reading a few of my other posts, I'm having an overheating issue. To the best of my knowledge, I'm NOT burning coolant and my head-gasket is fine. I've changed plugs, thermo switch, thermo-unit, thermostat, coolant twice, and actually have now removed the thermostat entirely.

Now Monday a friend of mine and I were going to go for a couple hours on the bike then head back home.. just to ride. Well, even on the highway doin 100KM/H the damn engine temp was creeping up higher than I wanted. So when we got into a small town about 20 minutes into the ride, we obviously slowed for the traffic lights and BAM, the temp shot right up into the red and in-fact by the time we got to another friend of ours a few minutes away from where we were at the time, I was PAST the red. I shut the bike off and she boiled for a good little while afterwards.

So I had ordered up a water pump off Flea-bay a week and a half ago and it arrived earlier today (err Tuesday)... So I put the ole bitch up on the stand and went to work. Took a while to get things off, but I finally removed the water pump. Took the cover off of it and to my amazement the damn thing looked brand new. No damage on the fins and it turns fairly effortlessly. Astonished, I looked at the "new" one I got in, and nearly shit my pants. I opened up the new one and the fins are rusted to hell, and it took a few minutes to free the impeller to a point where it actually turned..... But still not as free/easy as the one that was on the bike..

*sigh* I asked the guy who sold it to inspect the impeller condition and he said he did.. Good thing I got that in writing, cause the prick's either giving me my money back or getting a knock from Ebay in his in-box.. There's NO WAY he inspected it, the bolts still had years of grease/oil build-up on em.. and the seal wasn't broken...

Anyways, back to the origin of this post.. Now WTF do I look for??? There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with the cooling system now.. I mean I'm bringing the pump that was on there into the local Yammy dealer tomorrow to see if their head mechanic can tell me whether or not the impeller is spinning properly to begin with.. But otherwise, I have no idea what I should be looking for now in terms of what would cause the bike to overheat so severely. We get warm weather here (no, no igloo's here year round), but shit, it's nowhere near the scorching Texas or Arizona heat.. And all this stuff is WITH the fan running constantly by way of the bypass switch I installed.



I'm almost outta options here.. I might bring it into a shop to have them give it a once-over but aside from that, do I start looking at the motor as the culprit? do I call my riding season over for now and tear it down and inspect everything? God I hope not, but like I said, I just don't know...

[sweekster]

Here's a question...how does your oil look? It could be bad oil circulation but that's just a guess (that also will cause engine temps to rise). Sounds like you have gone through the cooling system pretty thoroughly so it's time to explore other avenues(or maybe doing a 600 swap??).

[cad600]

First thing I can think of is that there is something blocking the coolant from moving. I don't know about the 400, but the 600 has the radiator cap seperate from the rad itself. Either way remove the cap, crank the bike up and let it warm up. You should see the coolant moving a little then rising to the top of the cap. If not, then something may be blocking the lines and you should start to check them. Second thing I thought of is what kind of coolant are you running? I had switched to all distilled water with the water wetter additive with good results as compaired to 50/50 water antifreeze mixture. I've heard that engine ice is some good stuff as well.

[yamaha_george]

Alright, as some of you know from talking to me in chat and reading a few of my other posts, I'm having an overheating issue. To the best of my knowledge, I'm NOT burning coolant and my head-gasket is fine. I've changed plugs, thermo switch, thermo-unit, thermostat, coolant twice, and actually have now removed the thermostat entirely.

Now Monday a friend of mine and I were going to go for a couple hours on the bike then head back home.. just to ride. Well, even on the highway doin 100KM/H the damn engine temp was creeping up higher than I wanted. So when we got into a small town about 20 minutes into the ride, we obviously slowed for the traffic lights and BAM, the temp shot right up into the red and in-fact by the time we got to another friend of ours a few minutes away from where we were at the time, I was PAST the red. I shut the bike off and she boiled for a good little while afterwards.

So I had ordered up a water pump off Flea-bay a week and a half ago and it arrived earlier today (err Tuesday)... So I put the ole b**ch up on the stand and went to work. Took a while to get things off, but I finally removed the water pump. Took the cover off of it and to my amazement the damn thing looked brand new. No damage on the fins and it turns fairly effortlessly. Astonished, I looked at the "new" one I got in, and nearly sh*t my pants. I opened up the new one and the fins are rusted to hell, and it took a few minutes to free the impeller to a point where it actually turned..... But still not as free/easy as the one that was on the bike..

*sigh* I asked the guy who sold it to inspect the impeller condition and he said he did.. Good thing I got that in writing, cause the prick's either giving me my money back or getting a knock from Ebay in his in-box.. There's NO WAY he inspected it, the bolts still had years of grease/oil build-up on em.. and the seal wasn't broken...

Anyways, back to the origin of this post.. Now WTF do I look for??? There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with the cooling system now.. I mean I'm bringing the pump that was on there into the local Yammy dealer tomorrow to see if their head mechanic can tell me whether or not the impeller is spinning properly to begin with.. But otherwise, I have no idea what I should be looking for now in terms of what would cause the bike to overheat so severely. We get warm weather here (no, no igloo's here year round), but sh*t, it's nowhere near the scorching Texas or Arizona heat.. And all this stuff is WITH the fan running constantly by way of the bypass switch I installed.



I'm almost outta options here.. I might bring it into a shop to have them give it a once-over but aside from that, do I start looking at the motor as the culprit? do I call my riding season over for now and tear it down and inspect everything? God I hope not, but like I said, I just don't know...

B,
since you have replaced all the culprits, the only logical thing as suggested is to pump water through the hoses etc with a hose & house water pressure. Since the pump looks so damned pristine is it actually working when it is asked to. I would hook it up off the bike & see.

If the engine water system is not blocked and is in fact working then the engine has an oil cooling problem or is running SERIOUSLY lean due to an intake rubber leak.

Back in the day we sprayed ether type engine starter round the inlets and see if it would make the engine "kick" ie make a different note as it ran

Best of luck but riding is on the back burner till you fix this or you will seize the engine

[bweight]

Sweekster - I dipped my finger in the engine case where the water pump goes in.. The oil looks brand new and I've got prob. 1000 KM on the oil.. Nothing serious in that respect. I don't smell burning oil when riding either.

Cad - I've burped the rad numerous times before pulling the water pump. I've drained it twice, checked all the connections, started the bike back up and while running, I poured Engine Ice in there.. There's no blockages at all in the cooling system. I also noticed last night that my overflow reservoir bottle cap must have blown off the last time I rode because it's not there anymore and it was before the ride. The pressure must have been pretty damn high..


George - I'm bringing the pump into the Yammy stealership this afternoon to see what they think about the pump. It turns damn easily though.. I'm gonna have to start looking at the motor I believe, but I wanna make sure I cross everything off the list first. As for the carb boots, they're brand new as of a little over a month ago. I had to buy new ones from the stealership because the old ones were hard as a rock.

I'll see what happens today after seeing what the mechanic says, and tonight when the wife gets home I'll head into the garage and see if I can get the pump working off my water hose and see how it responds to that..

thanks for the suggestions guys

[bweight]

Well, here's the latest.

Went to the local dealership.. Talked to the head mechanic. He's stumped.. been there for 20 years, and he's genuinely stumped. We talked for about a half hour about things to test, and once we realized that I've been about as thorough as could be with the cooling system, he just doesn't know. Told me to put the thermostat back in, put the pump back in (because there's nothing wrong with it) and run 60/40 coolant. None of the waterwetter or engine ice stuff.. Told me to try that out and see if things settle down..

So then I went to another bike shop. They're a Kawi dealer, but the owner's a friend of my dads so I went there anyways... Talked to one of their mechanics and he told me a few things to try out on the water pump, because although it appears to be in good condition, it may still be having issues.. Tomorrow I'm going to put the pump back together and install it back on the bike. However, I'm only going to hook a hose on the inlet side which will be sitting in a pail of water.. Then I'm gonna start the bike.. If the pumps working properly, it should pull the water from the pail and spray all over from the outlet (I'll have another hose there so I don't take a shower)... I have a feeling though that it's still going to work correctly..

So from here, I'm still stuck. I'll probably tear the carbs off tomorrow, but I still don't know what to look for..

[fadlan12]

Are you losing water at all ?
Have you pressure checked the hoses? A friend had a leak was was losing water but could not tell from where. They put a pressure tester on the radiator inlet and it started leaking under pressure in 2 spots on the hoses. replaced hoses and end of issues. Of course this was car not a bike and would be easier to notice if ia bike was spraying water somewhere.

[bweight]

I'm going to do a pressure test on the rad either tomorrow or this weekend.. I'm gonna exhaust EVERYTHING on the cooling system.. I still want to have a look at the carbs while the bike's down for a while, and I might even look at the head gasket as well.. I don't notice any leaks anywhere and the coolant isn't draining on me so there's gotta be something, but I'm just haven't found it yet.

[haunter]

I'm going to do a pressure test on the rad either tomorrow or this weekend.. I'm gonna exhaust EVERYTHING on the cooling system.. I still want to have a look at the carbs while the bike's down for a while, and I might even look at the head gasket as well.. I don't notice any leaks anywhere and the coolant isn't draining on me so there's gotta be something, but I'm just haven't found it yet.

I was about to suggest that...maybe there is a blockage in the radiator...more likely there than in an oil passage

[fadlan12]

Any update?

[haro504]

i never took the head off this engine but i have on cars and on some engines the water travels through small holes in the head gasket if your bike has them they might have corroded enough to restrict the flow but in the end if you cant figure it out you might have to tear apart the top and replace radiator etc rust to rule everything out. had a head gasket not leak water into the cilinder but leak comperssion and heat into the water jurnal. if your thermostat is new and your water pump works then there is a blockage or its the head gasket there isnt much else especially if your fan runs constant.

[bweight]

*sigh*. note to self, don't hit the "view more smilies" button ever again after typing almost the entire message......

Anyways, sorry bout the lack of responses to the suggestions here.. It's just been really shitty (weather wise) around here and I haven't felt like going in the garage. But here goes. Pulled the tank off, removed the pump, inspected the tipped gear where the pump notch goes into and it was fine. Pulled off the rad hoses, flushed the system, removed the coolant rail at the back of the motor and blew compressed air through the entire system blowing out all the coolant and if there was anything stuck in the system, it's not there no more.

So I put things back together, put the fuel tank back in, fill the rad, airbox on, fire it up. Bleh, sputters when I let off the throttle and dies. Fire it back up with a little choke, [insert motorcycle cranking noise here] - Nothing happens. Turn choke full, blah, nothing. ............... No choke. Starts up, runs like shit, OOPS! forgot to turn petcock back on.... *sigh*..... fire it up, runs like shit, NOW WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Crack the throttle wide open, engine bogs and won't go over 2k.... Oh boy... Just quit smoking 2 weeks ago so now I'm livid. Don't have my usual calming smoke, start swearing at the bike, 74 year old neighbor on his garage roof doing the shingles chuckles as things start flying out of the garage.. some more.

Then I remember that I need to find a suitable solution for my missing coolant overflow bottle cap that's missing so I get in the truck and start going to some places. NOBODY in the city carries any, for anything. Go to local MX/snow machine/bike parts dealer. Surely they'll have something.. Yeah, guy comes out with something which looked pretty, but was about the size of a large PILL BOTTLE........... WTF was I going to do with that. Said screw it, went home. Find a couple of things from my RC plane fuel tanks and use that to plug the reservoir and tape the shit out of it so it's not goin anywhere this time. I would have used one of my fuel tanks from the planes, but well, then the planes wouldn't go anywhere would they.

So, I decide to try again. Fire the bike up, same thing happens. Then I remembered what I did.. 2 clicks clockwise with the idle adjuster and now it runs again....... Forgot when I had the tank off that I wanted to drop the idle down a touch. Guess I moved it too much (oops..)

I HOPE I can test the heating issues out tomorrow with 60/40 coolant, the thermostat back in there and the system flushed. If it's fine then I don't know why it works cause it's the 3rd time I flushed the system THIS YEAR. If it still overheats, I'm gonna order a bigger f1/f2/f3/yzf600 rad (whichever's cheapest) and put that sucker on there. Ride the bike until either the engine goes and replace it in the winter, or if it survives the season, then I'll tear it down and see what damage has been done and if it needs replacing, well, I'll do that too.

Guess I'm a little frustrated.

[yamaha_george]

*sigh*. note to self, don't hit the "view more smilies" button ever again after typing almost the entire message......



S

Then I remember that I need to find a suitable solution for my missing coolant overflow bottle cap that's missing so I get in the truck and start going to some places. NOBODY in the city carries any, for anything. Go to local MX/snow machine/bike parts dealer.

B.
The home brewing kit people sell Bungs that fit the o/flow bottle

[cad600]

how's the cooling issue going?

[bweight]

Not so good.. still overheating.. However I may be onto something now.. I went out last night for a good ride and it was rather chilly.. err downright cold. However the engine still got up in temp according to the gauge. Now I replaced the thermal switch last year and it is working, and I also replaced the thermo-unit but I'm having doubts about that right now.. There's a 0% chance that the engine should have been anywhere near that temp last night because it was damn cold, and I mean see your breath cold.. The gauge is fine, I tested that a month ago, but now like I said, I'm having serious doubts about the unit that sends the signal to the gauge.. it may not be overheating at all actually.. I'll have to test it this week.