Happy days. My manufacturer two year warranty expired on Sunday. Thank you for the (expensive) reminder!!
Wind makes a big difference and it's been windy lately. If you have a tailwind of 20 mph and you are riding at 20 mph, you will have zero airflow through your radiator. The fans are set to come in at over 100c for a reason, which is that any moisture in the oil or mayonnaise in the engine will not boil off until it reaches 100c. The cooling system is pressurised and the coolant is only 50% water. The combination of these factors means that your coolant shouldn't boil until it is over 125c. Synthetic oil is well able to take that kind of temperature. In normal uk conditions, our Italian engines run cool, so we tend to panic when the temperature does start to rise. We need to somehow train ourselves to see this as a positive, rather than negative thing and be pleased that all that nasty condensation is being purged from our precious motors...
Mine is too hot. The fans should always cool a bike to below the HI warning and mine just isn't. Only moving does that which kind of suggests I'm back in air cooled engine mode. Fans should kick in to cool the circulating coolant. I guess mine isn't circulating and therefore not cooling until I get cold moving air on the engine.
Hmmm... I'm sure your coolant is circulating or you'd be getting no cooling at all. If the fans are failing to kick in, at 105c or so, then maybe a fuse has gone.
I agree, having owned lots of jap 600's, they are all over 100 degrees as soon as u sniff a traffic light but The various Ducati's I have had have tended to run cooler, with a wider range though meaning u do panic, the 600's were always 75-100+ and the Ducati's I have had can be low 60's on chilly days
Fans 100% kick in. Temp will rise very quickly to the 120 HI warning. Only moving stops this. Fans should always be able to drop the temp and when mine kicks in it doesn't and climbs at the same rate.
when i had mine tuned at CJS i remember Chris saying tat he'd adjusted the fan activation temperature down to 100c. I don't know what it was originally and i don't recall why he did it either. I presume its something to do with the different fuelling needing cooler temperatures.
Agreed - could it be a water pump issue as opposed to blocked rad? In any case I'd keep a close eye so you don't cook it which is easy with an alley head.
I I have heard of fans becoming loose on their shafts, so the motors spin but the fan doesn't. Might be worth checking. Checked my 03 999 in the Summer and the fans did their job nicely, kicking in sequentially at 101 and 103 degrees or so and keeping the temperature under control as designed.
I can feel the fans through the other side of the rad so they are definitely blowing fine. I'm guessing i've just got the known rad problem the early models suffered from. Riding home at a brisk pace the temp was fine, 66-69 the whole way. Stopped and got off the bike and took my lid off and it was 88. That's far too fast so it must be the rad blockage. It's acting as though i'm on an air cooled engine rather than having liquid and fans for backup.
When I say other side of the rad, I mean I can feel them blowing onto my hand when my hand is at the front of the bike. I suppose it could be an air lock but as this rad thing is a known problem on my year, i'm going with that. Only wish I could warm up as fast as the bike. Cold and wet ride home!
Sounds like a blocked rad problem to me, but worth checking your water pump is working as well, otherwise it won't be flowing any water and that would give you the same problem too!
Umm, if the fans are blowing onto your hànd when it is at the front of your bike, that sounds like they are trying to blow forwards through the rad, rather than suck backwards...
Not only that, the fans will be drawing warm air surrounding the front of the engine and blowing it through the rad - which will contribute to the temperature sky-rocketing whilst the bike is at rest.
Strange. Problem was only seen today and I haven't changed the fans round?!? Definitely feel a breeze when the fans are active and I place my hand on the flat of the forward face of the rad. Often had temps of 110ish but never worried until today when it just kept climbing after the fans kicked in
When I had my engine go pop months ago, they delayed an extra week because of a hard to diagnose cooling problem. Been fine for the past 8 months but maybe it's back. I think they said it was a thermostat that time.
Are you Are you just feeling the airflow of the fans sucking the air through or are you feeling the air actually blowing forwards through the rad? Placing a piece of paper against the rad should give you a good indication.
