I've just returned from a pleasant ride out for the day. About 100 yards from home I noticed that the near side footrest had suddenly become very slippery. I looked down to see my leathers and boot covered in water! I immediately killed the engine and rolled onto my drive. The bottom hose going into the water pump had blown off with the hose clip still in place. I replaced it, checked it was tight and re-filled the resevoir. The bike didn't go over 110 degrees C so all should be OK. I re-started it and let it idle for a couple of minutes. The High Temperature warning came on with the temperature readout flashing - - - . The fans kicked in so I stopped the bike. The hose that blew off was scalding hot, the larger hose going to the radiator was stone cold and so was the radiator so my money is on water pump failure. It's still under warranty so I'll be ringing Riders Cardiff first thing in the morning to get it recovered to them. I just hope that it hasn't got hot enough to cook the engine and do any damage although I'm pretty sure in my mind that it hasn't. Bloody typical, we get one nice day and the bike lets me down. God knows what would have happened if that hose had blown off just before I tipped the bike into that last roundabout at 70-odd MPH, it covered the back of the bike in coolant.
Wow you were lucky. There have been a couple of thermostat failures but I don`t think any waterpumps & not to the extent of yours. The other possible thing is radiator. Keep us posted with the outcome.
Crap, that doesnt sound good. I thought the water pump was a direct drive from a gear driven drive shaft. Did you bleed the stytem after refilling by running it with the coolant cap off. It may just be a big bubble of air in the system althoughthe blowing off is worrying.
A whole batch of Rads on the 10 Multis were faulty. There is a great deal of info on the American site if you have a peek at that. I'm sure Andy will be around soon with more info on this.
Mine is a 2011 bike so I'm going to discount the rad core failure and stick with WP failure. I'm sure I'll know in a few days.
Ah no man....not good to hear this! I hope they can fix it quickly for you! As you say at least it happened close to home after your ride was done on this precious "great day" Did you notice an increase in temperature or was it simply that your leg was wet?
The first thing I noticed was the slippery foot peg then the rapid rise in temperature. Thinking about it I'm wondering if it is thermostat failure.
I cant understand why the pipe would blow off. Even with thermostat failure, if the bike was going to boil over, the safety pressure valve in the rad cap should have released steam first and not allowed such pressure to build. Im Confused.
My guess is that on this bike the guy on the production line in Bologna forgot to tighten the jubilee clip on the hose properly. The bike would run without problems until the first time heat caused the coolant pressure to build above a certain critical level (whether because of thermostat failure, water pump drive failure, radiator blockage, airlock in the system, or whatever) - then it would just pop off. If loose jubilee clip was not the problem, you would expect the pressure cap to vent steam first, or failing that ultimately a hose would burst.
Hmmm, reading a few threads on other sites seems to suggest a possible radiator core failure caused by the coolant mixture!! The "classic" symptom is fans running but freezing cold radiator as I had yesterday yet the bike going off the scale temperature wise. There doesnn't seem to be any record of water pumps failing but there are quite a few thermostat failures on early models. I think Pete could be right about the jubilee clip.
So the results are in. All of the N/S Jubilee clips weren't "tight enough". They've drained and re-filled the coolant then let the bike idle for almost an hour. They've then taken it for a decent test ride and it behaved faultlessly. So, it may be worth checking your jubilee clips for tightness just in case. It doesn't explain the cold radiator or upper waterpump pipe unless all the water had gone out of them but I'll pick it up this week and monitor it.
Yes indeed, but don't overtighten them either. If you strip the thread in the boodgilee clip, the hose will be more likely to pop off, not less.
Not a good experience and lucky you didn't come to grief Nigel, thankfully..........I'm pretty sure I've not heard of a hose coming off before even for any of the many failed radiator cases when you'd expect the cooling system may well be under additional pressure due to the lack of flow through the radiator and a lot of guys saw some pretty high max temps as a result also. Hopefull a one off (no consolation to you!) but.... ....thanks for the headsup, a good tip In course of checking my bike over ready for a few days away wef Friday........will be checking the hose clips as well now!
Not wanting to cause any panic, but if there is no water in the cooling system the temperature reading is almost certainly not going to show the actual engine temperature. The temp sensor usually measures the temperature of the water. No water, no reading.
Engines only get really hot when in stop/start traffic. There are still plenty of air cooled engines about to verify that you don't necessarily need water to keep it cool.
You are right Duke63 but so is Scwirral as the temperature sender unit on watercooled engines are located within the cooling system so measure water temperature. My MK1 air cooled Multi temperature dash reading came from the oil temperature via a sender unit in the oil system.
