I was riding this evening. 35mph and the air temperature was around 73 degrees. Suddenly, the temperature on my XX shoots up into the mid 270 degree range and there is steam everywhere.

After things cooled off, I checked things out and found a blown fan fuse. Now... I've never blown a fuse on a Honda before so this immediately bothers me (after the large pool of anti-freeze in the street). I pulled a 10 amp fuse from something else and put it in the fan slot and checked my coolant reservoir. Hmm... still pretty much full.

OK... I'll try and get the bike somewhere before I have to call the Honda Rider's Club.

NOW... things get really fucked up. As I ride the bike, the temperatures keep climbing. The fan is working and is not lowering the temperatures a bit while the engine is running. By now, the air temperatures are in the 60s and that alone should be more than enough to cool this fucking bike.

I rode about 8 miles on a freeway keeping the engine on until the temps hit around 235 degrees and then would coast for a while with the engine turned off. Finally, I got to my brother's and the bike only dumped a bit of coolant on his driveway.

Before I have the bike picked up and hauled to the nearest Honda shop, does anyone have a clue what the fuck is causing the bike's temperatures to rise whether the fan is running or not and even though I was riding a freeway speeds on a very cool evening.

I changed the coolant last week with Honda stuff and have ridden 750 miles since I changed it.

1) Did you use the pre mix..or the mix yourself shit ?

2) Did you bleed the system correctly ?

3) Did you change the coolant in the rez ?

4) Thermostat fucked ?

Thats all I can think.

Can't explain the blown fuse, which probably caused your first incident, but the second overheating- you were probably low on coolant ("large pool of anti-freeze in the street"). The system only holds around a gallon, so boiling off/spilling any signifigant amount is going to be have an big effect on the cooling sytem's effectiveness.

Fill it up again, bleed it properly (per Dave :razz: ), and see how it does.

Bigger problem may be figuring out why your fuse blew in the first place.

That's been the problem with my bike!!!! If you try to find my previous posts, my fan quit working on me and I had coolant all over the place. It was a blown fuse....I've had the bike in the shop for 3 weeks and the service guy has had calls into Honda tech department and they couldn't give him anything useful. At $85/hour I've paid these guys $1400 and they are no closer to finding a solution. ($1400 includes a new rear tire and new chain and the full 25000 km servicing). They've checked the cooling system and everything checks out okay. The thermostat opens at the appropriate time. The fan kicks in properly, but I still get temp readings way off the scale. I finally got tired of them guessing on my bike and me not riding and picked my bike up the other day...besides Dean's sending my his Beetle bags and I want to fit them...I'm waiting or Ricrad to find out whether the changes to his bike have worked...otherwise, I'm going to try to figure it out on my own. I've been hoping someone on this forum would have solutions....People keep saying Water Wetter, but when your temp gauge is in the red zone, 8-10 degrees won't make much of a difference. If you come up with anything, please let me know.

Joel

As far as blowing your fan fuse, when mine blew it was my first indication of a fried reg/rec. It would allow momentary spikes of 18 volts in the system.

After the fan fuse, headlight bulbs started frying, took me a while to see the momentary 18 volts on my multimeter.

Another thing to check is the condition of the radiator
"fins"; make sure they are not all bent or clogged.

I regularly drive down a dirt road, and mine became
all jammed up.

So what happened? Did you hear back? I'm voting on the thermostat or the water pump.

Won't know for a week or so. The shop is way backed up.

Talking to them this morning we found that it seemed interesting that after the radiator blew it's brains out all over the road that coolant wasn't drawn from the reservoir to refill it.

I'll keep everyone posted

Air bubble??? Something seems to obvious here...

A suggestion....print out all these recommendations from everyone on the forum, including the other thread I have going, cause if they're F*'d up like my service dept, you'll pay a lot of money for no solution. At least they can try. After all, these guys on the forum know more than most everyone else.

But....

Fortunately, I have a Honda Extended Warranty.

Unfortunately, HRCA towed it to a dealership that only carries Honda ATVs

Fortunately, HRCA is picking the bike up tomorrow and delivering it to a Honda dealership authorized to do warranty work on motorcycles.

Unfortunately, it will be loaded on a greasy flatbed again while I'm 110 miles away

Won't really know for a few days when the bike is really examined but the initial guess from a very competent Service Manager is...

1) Something caused the 10 amp mini-fuse to blow

2) The bike overheated without the fan operating and caused the coolant to overflow.

3) When the coolant overflowed, it created an air bubble which prevented the additional coolant in the reservoir from being drawn into the radiator which meant that the bike had too little coolant available to cool the engine when it was running.

All I can say is that I'm damn glad that I bought that extended warranty from Musselman Honda last year. <thanks Carlos>

I'll certainly keep everyone posted on their progress.

That's exactly what they said to me when I first brought my bike in....after I picked it up and they said everything in the cooling system was working properly, I still have the high temp gauge issue to try and deal with. I think I'm just going to replace the rad cap and the coolant temperate sensor.

Anyone have part #'s for them?

Joel

I have PIAA 910 series driving lights on my XX. Rather than use the switch that came with the PIAA 9162 kit, I used a high-quality, high-amperage double-pole, double-throw, center-off toggle switch.

To wire such this switch, I wired the center two poles to the PIAA relay, two poles to my high beam wire and two poles to a switched hot lead (12 volts present whenever the ignition key was turned on). As I did with my Goldwing 6 years ago, I used the radiator fan wire for this power source.

According to the dealership, tapping that wire significantly reduced the voltage available to power the fan which slowed it's speed enough to cause the radiator to overheat. Hmmm.....

1) This has never been an issue with my Goldwing but the Wing has two fans.

2) The lights were not turned on at 5:00 PM on a sunny, very hot afternoon.

3) Why would just tapping into a wire and not drawing power from it cause a voltage drop?

4) Why would the fuse blow?

They are only charging me for 1 hour of labor so it hasn't caused any financial hardship and I'm willing to find a different power source for the toggle switch but I'm just not certain that tapping into that wire actually caused the fan to fail or if it provided a convienent reason as to the source of the problem.

BTW... they did put a meter on the fan wire and did observe a significant slowing of the fan when the PIAA lights were turned on but that may have not had anything to do with the fan wire and everything to do with the weak-kneed alternator in the XX

Thoughts???

You used a vampire tap?? Those are horrible unless both the tapped and new wire are very low-power. Why would it cause a permanent problem? It breaks many strands of wire as it taps, reducing the effective guage of the wire at that point. A wire is only as "thick" as its thinnest point. Further, the resistance causes a hotspot, and heat further increases resistance, further increasing heat... As voltage goes down, current needs to maintain the same total power (volts x current = wattage). This is just one huge viscious circle. In extreme cases, the heat actually causes some wire strands to melt slightly and pull back, further reducing capacity and increasing heat. It only takes a fraction of a millimeter of melting for this to happen; it may never be visible.

Your dealer is absolutely correct.

Like I said, vampire taps are only for low-power wires, and even then, I'd recommend carefully stripping the wire and soldering the tap wire instead, then sealing it with "liquid electrical tape." But never put a high-power device like a headlamp on another circuit anyway. You will have trouble eventually. The proper way to do this is with a 12# wire from a battery terminal. You can then use a relay to give yourself automatic activation with the ignition.

Really, just say no to vampire taps on bikes and boats.

No way.... ain't buying it.

The amount of current needed to activate the PIAA relay is trivial; we're talking signal voltage that amounts to trace milliamps.

My PIAA 910s have the same heavy-duty, double-pole, double throw, center-off toggle switch as you do. It is wired *exactly* as yours is, with the exception that I am drawing my switched source from my low-beam circuit. This circuit is always live when the ignition switch is on and the starter not engaged. I am using 22-gauge wire for this circuitry.... small stuff, but more than adequate to send signal voltage to the PIAA relay.

Following your dealership's theory, when I throw the toggle switch, my low beam should noticably dim. It does not.



Tapping into that wire did not cause the fan to fail. A *possible* exception: somewhere along your circuit between the toggle switch and fan tap, the wire got pinched in some manner, shorting it to ground, and blowing the fan fuse. This is an *infinitely* more plausible scenario that what your dealer is proposing.




This is especially true if that did this test at idle! Was this test done at 3000-4000 RPM like it should have been?

Another thought, Bill: if you're running anything but 55w H3's in your PIAAs, that's asking for eventual trouble. If you left in the stock 110-H3s that come in the PIAA package, that is no good. Swap them out ASAP if that's the case. These are the baby-bubba's ya want: PIAA Xtreme White H3s, twin pack p/n: 15255. These are The Shit when it comes to H3 bulbs.

[edit: Carlos is spot on with his comments regarding the vampire taps. I never use them unless it's a roadside repair. I usually disassemble the adjacent connector and play the solder game. ]

[quote][quote="Warchild]Another thought, Bill: if you're running anything but 55w H3's in your PIAAs, that's asking for eventual trouble. If you left in the stock 110-H3s that come in the PIAA package, that is no good. Swap them out ASAP if that's the case. These are the baby-bubba's ya want: PIAA Xtreme White H3s, twin pack p/n: 15255. These are The Shit when it comes to H3 bulbs.[/quote]

[quote]Carlos is spot on with his comments regarding the vampire taps. I never use them unless it's a roadside repair. I usually disassemble the adjacent connector and play the solder game.[/quote]

I'm already using PIAA 55W Xtreme White H3s.

Yep... I fucked up and used a vampire tap when I knew perfectly well to do it correctly and solder the damn wire. So what Carlos suggests about reducing the number of usable strands is certainly a possibility. Since that method had worked for the past 7 years on my Goldwing, I guessed that it would work out for the XX. Dumb move.

I do have a power strip and I'm just going to use that as my switched power source.

Honestly, I can't think of any other reason why the fuse blew so I'm willing to pay the 1 hour labor to find the problem and to top off my radiator. If it blows again, nothing is going to be connected to that wire and everyone will know to look for another explaination.

Couple things to consider... The Wing was never on a "diet" so using oversize wire was not an issue. On all modern sport bikes even the wire guage is calculated for minimum weight (sounds goofy, but there's a significant amount of wire weight on a bike). Also the Wing in general was expected to have to live through harsh conditions and put up a lot of miles. I'm sure it's purposely overbuilt.

Finally...vampire taps are like the lottery. Sometimes you win, most of the time you lose. They're not exactly precision-engineered, so sometimes they may rip up a wire while sometimes they barely touch it.

When you guys say "vampire taps" do you mean scotch loks?
The kind that just crimp slotted pieces of metal down through insulation onto the conductors?

Bill-

so the dealer just topped off the coolant and called it a fix? Could they reproduce your original problem of overheating?

Carlos and Warchild both have valid points, some more pertinent than others to your situation. Here's what I would do:

* if you haven't done so already, set up a switched fuse block...power the fuse block from a relay that gets its sense voltage from the main fuse block.

* power the PIAA switch line from a ~5A fuse on this aux fuse block. Yes, this is way overkill vs. just powering it from a switched tap like you did....but Carlos is correct in that the fan wiring was at the hairy edge of capacity before you vamped some strands from the wire....

* look at replacing that fan wiring with something with a smaller wire gauge number (uh, fatter wire). You're not looking to save weight at this point, you're looking to correct the problem. Losing strands in the fan wire won't cause the fuse to blow; an additional voltage drop in series will actually LOWER the current supplied to the fan. Your number one problem is overheating, so let's focus on that first.

* any chance you have a voltmeter on that bird? Be nice to know what your system voltage is when you crank in your accessories. I'm lucky enough to use a Garmin GPS III+ for this, built-in voltmeter.

* I would concur that a fuse blowing has a lot more to do with possible wires melting to ground or being pinched to ground somewhere. I'd like to look at that fuse to see how violent the fuse went. It'll tell you a lot about what kind of load the fuse took before it committed suicide.

If all else fails, I'm three hours south of you. Swing by and we'll find some answers.

Tell me guys or am I going nuts ! Did the 2001 XX have 2 cooling fans or what ? I swear my 01 had them, my 00 does'nt, my friends 03 does'nt either,

My 2001 only has one fan.

I wouldn't know what to look for in the fuse. There's about 1/3 of the metal horseshoe missing.

It's so small, that I could just mail it to you if you wanted to take a look at it.

PM me if you'd be willing to do that

Damn, Bill, I wrote too fast last night. Must have been tired.

With the small "cartridge" fuses popular in consumer electronic equipment, the fused element is located inside a sealed glass tube. You've seen them.

If the current through the fuse *just* exceeds the limit, then you'll see a small break in the center of the element. If the load circuit has a massive short and grossly exceeds the fuse's ratings, then you'll see a shiny metallic "splat" on the inside. What this means, is that if I see a fuse open up with the "small" break, then I can safely assume that it was a transient current spike and will replace the fuse....maybe with a slo-blo fuse this time as long as it's not protecting sensitive electronics.

But I forgot that we're dealing with those little colored automotive blade fuses. (duh) I don't think that they'll display the same symptoms when they SPLAT. But the same principle applies....the closer to the rating that the current exceeds it, then the smaller the break will be.

Can you take a dig picture?

I'll try to see if I can get a photo of it. If you were looking at a mini fuse, you'd notice that the metal inside sort of forms the shape of a horseshoe. On one side of that horseshoe, about 1/2 of the metal is missing so there is a fair sized gap in the metal. I would estimate it to be almost 1/3 of the total fuse material.

There is no discoloration.

I talked to the Service Manager at the dealership this morning and they are 100% convinced that a Scotchlok connected to the fan wire caused the fuse to blow and caused the radiator to boil its coolant. The fact that the driving lights were not on and that there are no shorts doesn't cause them to wonder if they really found the cause of the failure but... I wouldn't have expected them to have looked beyond that tap.

They did top off the coolant, burp it several times, and rode it several miles with no temperature problems so I'm going to travel the 100 miles to the shop tomorrow and pick up the XX.

OK, that tells me that it wasn't a total frag job.....the fuse blew somewhere near it's rating. It would have shown a lot more carnage if it was a direct short to ground.




I believe that their diagnosis, while fundamentally and logically sound, is INCORRECT. As Warchild pointed out earlier, very little current is pulled from the "switch" PIAA wire; it's only purpose is to grab enough current to actuate the LED in the switch, and to power the relay coil. Maybe 100 mA at most (one tenth of one ampere).

But it's a simple conclusion, kind of like finding a dead body with a gun in its hand, a hole in its head, and concluding that it was suicide....without checking prints on the gun. So your dealer probably exchanged high fives all around and got rotator cuff problems slapping themselves on their backs.

The first thing I would do (after cleaning up your wiring) would be to put an ammeter in series with your fan, and run it until it it turned on. These motors do destroy themselves on occasion, and if the bearings are not loose there'd be a shiteload of startup current....this may have indeed created the chain of events that you experienced.

That's my guess, based on your description of the fuse, that it was NOT a ground short. But I would still check out that wiring and aux fuse it.

When you pick up the bike from the dealer, idle it in the parking lot until you complete at least 3-4 fan cycles. It would suck to have that happen on the way home again.

Hope this helps, bro.

FINAL CHAPTER???

The vampire tap that powered the toggle switch for my PIAA driving lights was removed from the radiator fan wire. The Service Manager and I both inspected it thoroughly and found no visible broken or damaged strands.

Before leaving the dealership, we ran the motorcycle long enough for the fan to come on several times.

I then rode it 80 miles on the Interstate at 80 - 85 mph and the temperature stayed between 180 and 190 degrees.

I then rode about 15 miles in very heavy, rush-hour, stop-and-go four lane traffic with numerous stoplights. The temperature varied between 190 and 218 degrees.

It's 93 degrees here in metro Detroit today.

So far, so good except...

The towing service that HRCA dispatched severly damaged the right side fairing, the right side mirror and the left side engine cover by improperly securing the bike on the flatbed. HRCA has an Incident Management Team that is investigating. (The bike was 100 miles away and I hadn't seen it since the breakdown on August 9th.) The dealership Service Manager noted the damage on my repair order as well as the fact that the bike was improperly secured when it was delivered at his shop

:evil: BASTARDS! :evil: :evil: