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Just had an engine swap...No Coolant??

1K views 8 replies 4 participants last post by  Arjay67 
#1 ·
Hey y'all, just had my engine swapped for an 06 since my other motor exploded on the highway.

The bike seemed to be riding pretty well. Other than the fact that I was watching the motor temp and at a stop it would get up to 230+. I thought that was odd. I thought it may just do that on a hot day it was like 90.

So I decided to look under my bike today and I saw my coolant reservoir had absolutely no coolant! Wtf?

Not saying the shop didn't put any coolant in. It looked like there was condensation in it so they may have. It may have dripped out I don't know. Also noticed tape on the resevoir? This kind of made me think what the heck.

Also I noticed this hose just sitting there not connected to anywhere but the top of the coolant tank. What is this hose and where does it go?

Getting so frustrated as this bike seems to be endless problems.

Here is that hose leading to no where
adult image

And here is my empty coolant resevoir for good measure

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#2 ·
Thats the overflow bottle. Mine is empty when cold on my 03 too. Fairly certain you bring your bike up to operating temperature and then fill between those lines. Easy way to tell if there is coolant in the system when cold is to crack open the thermostat drain bolt and see if any comes out. If you've gone that far tho, you may as well do a coolant flush to see if that helps with your overheating.

The dangling line may have fallen off the neck of the bottle. There are 2 lines between the bottle and radiator, the one on the bottom of the bottle pulls coolant back in to the radiator and one on the neck brings excess (overflow) coolant from the radiator to the bottle. If you can find where the hose is still attached we can better help figure out where it should go.

230 isn't normal though. Fan at 220 F should stop it from getting that high. My bike is black and I put way too much insulation on the back side of all the plastics so it heats up pretty quick but never gets that high.
 
#3 ·
the line you are showing is the overflow. if the bottle over fills it dumps the coolant out under the bike


there is only one line that goes from the reservoir to the radiator, and it connects to the bottom of the reservoir. when the cooling system pressurizes beyond the rating of the rad cap, fluid is moved into the reservoir, as the system cools it is drawn back into the radiator.


nothing is wrong or screwed up or broken

what happened is the shop didn't totally fill the system, so when it built up pressure it pushed air into the overflow, then as it cooled it drew fluid out of the res. keep this cycle up and the system will take all the fluid out of the res


the reason your bike is hot is because it's not full.

pull the rad cap when cold and top up the radiator, then fill the reservoir to about the lower line. monitor it for a few rides and you should be ok.
 
#4 ·
Wibbly is right. I was trying to recall it all from memory but after looking, the hose on the neck of the bottle is routed behind my headers to the left side of the bike with the gas tank breather and drain hoses next to the kickstand.
 
#5 · (Edited)
Wow so I have to actually turn the bike on and let it run to be able to tell where the overflow is at. Bike was completely cold when i took the pics...

How do I know when to stop filling in the rad cap? After filling in the radiator cap I start filling to the bottle directly where the black rubber cap is that says "coolant"?

Thanks for getting that cleared up! And being friendly to a newbie lol!
 
#9 ·
Wibbly is right. The way it's supposed to work is that, after you service the cooling system, you fill the rad up to the top. You then run the bike for a few minutes, blip the throttle, and then shut it off. The idea is to remove air from the system and then top off the rad again.

At that point, if the engine is cold, you fill the overflow bottle to the bottom line with the bike in the upright position. If there is no further air in the system then what you should see is that when the engine is fully hot, and you hold the bike upright, the level should rise to the upper line (due to expansion). So, when cold it would read on the lower mark and when hot the upper.

If all the air is purged then under normal conditions you never remove the radiator cap. You add antifreeze to the recovery tank.

If the system has integrity, and is air-free, then you should never have to add anything. All you should see is that if you check it in the morning it's on the lower mark and if you check it after a ride it's on the upper mark.
 
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