kjetil4455
Active Member
Dear friends,
Went for a ride in the jungle with a friend of mine who has a GS1200. Unfortunately, well, for me, it was my bike who broke down and not the GS as the yamaha groups commonly laugh about.
In the morning I noticed a strange smell, and fumes coming out from the right side of the bike adjacent to the throttle body. Kept on going, figured it was "probably nothing", haha. Bike's temp was normal and the coolant reserve was ful, so I didn't think it was the coolant. Every time we stopped it seemed to get worse, and it smelled more in an incline and less in a decline. The smell then... stopped. It seemed ok. About three hours later, deep into the jungle, the bike started overheating. It had been running virtually nonstop at 105C (I think that's 221F, the max. "normal" temp) for at least one hour, if not two. Now, it was running at 106, 107C, and didn't even come down during downhill riding without giving throttle. I became concerned.
Stopped to check the reserve and it was now EMPTY. I filled it with water and the engine came down to 95C ish, much cooler. We stopped after 20 minutes, and the coolant tank was half empty again. Refilled. AFter 20 more minutes we stopped to check again, and when I stopped, the fluid in the reserve tank was literally boiling, and spilled out of the reserve tank. This happened several more times. I was able to scrape by and get home after 4 hours, overheating lamp turning on just once during an incline which forced me to stop. Cooling system started working again when we stopped climbing upwards.
Sorry for a lot of text. I got it to the stop and we found the radiator empty, so figured it was the thermostat. There was no evident leak through any of the hoses or the rad itself. Changed the theramostat, but it still kept spilling fluids back to the reserve tank and on the floor. Figured it was the lid, so we cleaned the radiator and changed the radiator lid. Seemed to resolve the overheating and it has not spilled fluid afterwards. Now, finally, to my question: After all of this, obviously, I am nerviously following the engine temp. I live in south america, and we have daily temps of at least 35C here. The bike was frequently going up to 106 C which is 1C above spec. It quickly came down as the fan came on, however. I can't recall that the engine reached 106C when waiting in queues before, though.
Any reason to worry?
Apologies for this [perhaps unnecessarily] long back story.
Went for a ride in the jungle with a friend of mine who has a GS1200. Unfortunately, well, for me, it was my bike who broke down and not the GS as the yamaha groups commonly laugh about.
In the morning I noticed a strange smell, and fumes coming out from the right side of the bike adjacent to the throttle body. Kept on going, figured it was "probably nothing", haha. Bike's temp was normal and the coolant reserve was ful, so I didn't think it was the coolant. Every time we stopped it seemed to get worse, and it smelled more in an incline and less in a decline. The smell then... stopped. It seemed ok. About three hours later, deep into the jungle, the bike started overheating. It had been running virtually nonstop at 105C (I think that's 221F, the max. "normal" temp) for at least one hour, if not two. Now, it was running at 106, 107C, and didn't even come down during downhill riding without giving throttle. I became concerned.
Stopped to check the reserve and it was now EMPTY. I filled it with water and the engine came down to 95C ish, much cooler. We stopped after 20 minutes, and the coolant tank was half empty again. Refilled. AFter 20 more minutes we stopped to check again, and when I stopped, the fluid in the reserve tank was literally boiling, and spilled out of the reserve tank. This happened several more times. I was able to scrape by and get home after 4 hours, overheating lamp turning on just once during an incline which forced me to stop. Cooling system started working again when we stopped climbing upwards.
Sorry for a lot of text. I got it to the stop and we found the radiator empty, so figured it was the thermostat. There was no evident leak through any of the hoses or the rad itself. Changed the theramostat, but it still kept spilling fluids back to the reserve tank and on the floor. Figured it was the lid, so we cleaned the radiator and changed the radiator lid. Seemed to resolve the overheating and it has not spilled fluid afterwards. Now, finally, to my question: After all of this, obviously, I am nerviously following the engine temp. I live in south america, and we have daily temps of at least 35C here. The bike was frequently going up to 106 C which is 1C above spec. It quickly came down as the fan came on, however. I can't recall that the engine reached 106C when waiting in queues before, though.
Any reason to worry?
Apologies for this [perhaps unnecessarily] long back story.