Operating temperature variations

[ballisticexchris]

Yup. No air guide. No idea why that would have ever been removed, but as I have discovered through other issues, the previous owner of my bike was a fucking idiot. Kinda hard to get air to the right place without that guide there, I’d imagine.

One of the reasons buying used is so chancy. Idiot is a nice word. It was a deliberate act to create a problem for new owner. What a jerk!!

 

[RCinNC]

A deliberate act? As in, he took the inner guide out of the cowling just to mess with the buyer?

 

[maverick2076]

Threw my wife’s panel on, and it’s an instant 20 degree difference. New air guide and bolts ordered. I’ll still go ahead and flush the radiator and replace the coolant, just to be sure it’s done.

 

[maverick2076]

A deliberate act? As in, he took the inner guide out of the cowling just to mess with the buyer?

I doubt it was deliberate. He was just a lazy and careless owner, as I have discovered. This isn’t the only issue I’ve had like this.

Buying a used bike can be a roll of the dice. I’ve still had less issues with this bike used from a crappy owner than I did with my brand ne HD over the same time period.

 

[RCinNC]

Yeah, I'm definitely inclined to believe that, maverick. Hanlon's Razor is always a good guide: " Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".

 

[jeckyll]

Agree completely.

 

[RCinNC]

Threw my wife’s panel on, and it’s an instant 20 degree difference. New air guide and bolts ordered. I’ll still go ahead and flush the radiator and replace the coolant, just to be sure it’s done.

Probably not a bad idea. If he's as sketchy as you describe, it's safe to assume that the original coolant is still in the bike. Or hopefully it's coolant, and he didn't mix antifreeze with Gatorade 'cuz, well, they're both green, y'know.....

 

[Cycledude]

You were very sharp finding the issue ! The test using another panel to confirm it’s actually the issue is another smart move !

Me too. I’m going to put my wife’s panel on my bike to verify that that is the issue, but it makes sense to me.

 

[maverick2076]

It was just such a weird issue, and nothing really made sense. It maintained a steady temp, and the fan was cooling it fine. It was just 20 degrees hotter than my wife’s bike. Pulling the crash bar bags didn’t change it. I finally decided to just look at them and see what was different.

It makes me really grateful we both ride the same bike. Who knows how long it would’ve taken me to figure this out otherwise.

 

[Kyle_E]

Amazing how a little piece of plastic can have such a impact.... (and Im going to go pull mine off tomorrow to make sure its there)

 

[WJBertrand]

I had the little plastic push pins that hold that inner panel in place pop out in a tip over, leaving the panel loose in there. I wonder something similar happened with the PO, and the panel fell out or he couldn’t figure out how to put it back in?


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[Don in Lodi]

Kinda neat that even with the ducting missing it still didn't over heat.

 

[WJBertrand]

I noticed the little rubber bumper that keeps the side panel from contacting the tank is also missing from the upper left corner. These fall out easily and I found one in the battery box with no idea where it came from initially. That air guide directs the air to the inside of the radiator to make sure the flow crosses the core in the correct direction. without it air just flows down both sides of the radiator without efficiently extracting much heat.

 

[VRODE]

Good catch. Nice that you had another close by to compare it to.

 

[EricV]

Keeping the air directed where it needs to go thru the radiator usually makes a big difference. I used to play with some track cars and many would have such good ducting for the radiators and intercoolers that no fans were needed. In a couple of cases, a non-powered fan was found to be reducing air flow, (think A/C fan). Common Miata trick was to wire the A/C fan to the regular fan so both would come on together w/o the A/C on. For those that didn't do that, telling them to turn on the A/C when the car was starting to over heat would actually lower the coolant temps, much to the surprise of the drivers.

I hope that's all it is. Good eye on spotting the missing part.

 

[ballisticexchris]

I noticed the little rubber bumper that keeps the side panel from contacting the tank is also missing from the upper left corner. These fall out easily and I found one in the battery box with no idea where it came from initially. That air guide directs the air to the inside of the radiator to make sure the flow crosses the core in the correct direction. without it air just flows down both sides of the radiator without efficiently extracting much heat.

Looks like I will be doing a teardown here in a few weeks to prep for a big ride. So this is good info for stuff to check for.

 

[Traveler]

Just returned from my Alaska trip and added Moab Ut to my itinerary. Ran the White Rim trail where it climbed to 102 deg F. My bike temp climbed to 220 and the fan ran constantly . Began smelling coolant , so i turned around and went back up to cooler temps 100 deg F. Bike cooled to 200 deg f and once i got back moving 40-60 mph it came down to 180. All was well after that.

 

[wera688]

I just got back from +11,000 mile trip to Alaska and at times in the +90 degree heat at +80-85 mph on an incline it showed 195. If I backed off it would go down so I wasnt worried.