superhawk996

There's also those devices that are just a light that changes colors to indicate voltage levels, google "motorcycle charging indicator" and you'll see some options. It gives less info and costs more, but is small and much more likely to get your attention if your charging system goes out. A voltmeter is nice but won't do anything for you 'till you read it.

Very cool, thanks. Never thought to search for stuff like that.

Heat speeds evaporation; run the motor briefly, it'll also help blow out any that could possibly be hiding in the pump. Probably overkill but it won't hurt.

Drain system removing plugs/hoses/thermostat as needed to assure a full drain. Use an air blower to help remove trapped water/coolant. Add prep fluid, run engine at least 10 minutes and drain/blow as before. Add Evans coolant purging and topping off as needed. Check Evans with a refractometer to verify less than 3% water content. Recheck level the first couple runs to assure that all air is out and coolant level has stabilized. Since you have about half the prep fluid left over you could drain & prep again for the fuck of it, that should assure no water is left in there. Poor man's water test, assuming you don't have a refractometer in the toolbox: put some coolant on a little piece of aluminum foil folded to make a small puddle. Heat with a cigarette lighter and see if it boils. I've done this to test the gear oil from boat outdrives to check for water. It takes very little time to heat the oil to where it's smoking, if there's water it starts to boil pretty quickly. Not knowing how Evan's reacts you can compare to a test using some from the bottle as a baseline. Assuming your system is the same size as the one in the manual photo above you only got about 2/3 drained which means you'd have about 1/3 prep fluid left when you go to coolant. Unless you figure out how to get that out I'd contact them to find out how much prep fluid is OK to leave in with the coolant, 1/3 capacity seems like a lot and maybe too much, but I know nothing about this stuff. Maybe try flushing with another round of coolant if you can't figure out how to get a full drain, but it really shouldn't be hard to get a pretty complete drain on this system. As for your fan operation, since it's seeing radiator temp and not the engine temp you see on the gauge the engine temp to fan on/off temp will vary depending on air temp and air speed if moving or the when the fan comes on.

Absolutely a useful tool, not bashing it's usefulness. I assume Calc is just a hobbyist/guy who plays with engines a bit (I don't keep up with who does what very well) and didn't want him thinking this is a magical tool or one that is 'needed' for the home tinkerer. He might know twice as much as I do about engines, not a clue. I've had several friends who 'had to have one' because of something they read from another ignorant gear-head. Some of them go to the extent to say things like "idiots use a compression gauge but a real mechanic uses a leak-down tester". If one is working on specialty engines and has specs or a good knowledge of what percentage of leakage is normal then the tool is somewhat indispensable for wear testing.

You made reference to this twice now, the tester doesn't tell you where the leak is, you have to use your ears or other methods to determine where it's leaking.

The adapters are generally the same. I've never used a leak down tester. When I find a compression problem I just shoot air into the plug hole and listen for where it's coming out. Never much cared what the percentage of leakage was.

Dibs, unless Helvet has already struck a deal. Emailing now.

I'd sport one if I had a 6. It would be a nice blend with my compensation truck. What an odd combination of stuff. The alien and pizza are kinda cool, then the cat to gay it up. The surfer and taco are kinda cool, then a flower. Whoever came up with these needs a talking to, or maybe that's how they roll in China.

It's a straight forward bolt-on swap. After all the cutting, welding, wiring, and plumbing is done. Not a clue really. I would start with some pics & measurements of a BB motor and see how feasible it looks. I have one here, kinda tucked in a corner but I can supply him some info if he needs it.

I've put Ultra bulbs in a few vehicles and the difference was night & day to whatever they replaced. They have a shorter life expectancy than 'normal' bulbs and I believe they run hotter.

But it would require more boost which means more pumping losses, more intake heat, etc. which work against making power and work toward popping the motor.....at least I think it would.

They don't know how to use commas so I'm out. If it weren't so spendy I'd dig it.

The red oil light is just perfect for them. And I'd rather have that than a fake pressure gauge as it would be more likely to be alerted by a bright red light than a needle that dipped out of range if something were to go awry. My understanding is that Ford got tired of warrantee claims for low oil pressure so they went to the switch instead of a real sender so that all their vehicles would have "perfect" oil pressure.

I generally don't trust any gauge that's showing a questionable reading until I verify it with another one. I questioned the oil pressure on my Explorer, then found out that it's basically an idiot light with a needle instead of a bulb; fuckin assholes at Ford. Any amount of pressure over about 5psi puts the needle in the 'normal' position and it doesn't move unless the pressure drops below 5psi. then the needle drops to 0.

The one about your bike supposedly going through two radiators that leak but don't leak when tested or a different one? Not saying it's impossible, just haven't found that in my 30ish years of wrenching.

My '97 never got that high, but different animal in similar clothing. As long as you flushed all the blue devil out, the system is full, being consistent, and it's not boiling or doing other things it's not supposed to it should be fine. I assume the radiator is all aluminum and welded but never checked, if it's a soldered copper rad. I would avoid any 'long life' coolant. If you didn't recheck the level after the first full heat cycle you should now just in case there was any trapped air that burped out and lowered the level. The highest I've seen on my '01 is mid-high 220's on a hot day moving slow or stopped and it takes a fair bit of speed to really get it much cooler. The fan comes on while the temp keeps rising for a bit, it drops a few degrees, fan turns off and temp keeps dropping just a bit then starts to climb again. Adding another fan or a manual control sounds like a good idea, but Honda decided it was good enough and lots of Birds have proven it's good enough. It should be better for it to stay cooler, but it doesn't appear to cause any harm. I'd be afraid to hammer on it hard from a really hight temp even tho it may not be a problem. I don't get on mine 'till it's warmed up over 180 and try not to do it above 220, but plenty of people just ride and pay that no attention with no problems. I thought about adding a speed controlled switch to mine so the fan comes on when the speed drops and before the temp starts to rise, but since it does no harm the idea has stayed 'someday' project. I'm a mechanical guy so I'd probably use a sail switch, but I'm sure there's a simple electronic way to do it. It would also give something to tap into if one wanted self-cancelling turn signals.

What's the new price?

Like ones that have had piercings that went badly, been there. Such a shame cuz they were otherwise really nice. Ever run into inverted nipples? That was interesting. They'd pop out with enough motivation, but were otherwise innies. What they were attached to was good to go so fuck it. A lot I did.

I doubt the flakes could get into the seal. 300k seems reasonable for the seal to be worn out. My Super Hawk's pump started weaping after doing a coolant change using Honda coolant, it had under 10k miles at the time. As I added water to replenish what was being lost it stopped leaking. My guess is that the coolant was too 'slippery' and getting past the seal and diluting it cured the problem. Shouldn't have happened but it did.

I think 97 doesn't have that, might be the only year, and that's the one I was thinking of. You're right about the majority of birds for sure, I forgot they'd changed in later models.

The hose from the thermostat to radiator, the upper, is generally the first to go and in most cases degrades right at the thermostat outlet first, this is a general engine thing not a XX specific thing. Look inside the hose and if it doesn't look chewed up and has no soft spots anywhere it's good. If it looks bad at the outlet but nowhere else and can be trimmed a bit and still fit that'll add a lot of life to it. You don't have to trim the bad part completely off, just enough that the bad part is no longer in the flow. Putting the bad part under the clamp is fine, but if total removal still leaves enough hose then might as well do it.

I'll second the anti seize. Or at least some oil or grease. The torque value will change compared to dry so keep to the low side of the torque spec when you assemble and don't get any lube between the screw head and pump as that'll change things even more.

Water speed absolutely does make a difference, the faster it flows the more it'll cool, it has nothing to do with assumptions. If the coolant is flowing though the radiator really fast it will return to the engine hotter than if it were moving slowly, but it's also moving through the engine really fast which means it can remove more heat more quickly. Too much pressure in the system will not cause an over heat, the more pressure it can hold the higher the boiling point will be and the higher the boiling point the better. It's no different than fan speed; a fan on low will remove xx amount of heat, on high it'll remove more heat. Pump cavitation will slow the flow, and has nothing to do with the missing thermostat and the 'too much' flow theory. The only possible relationship is that a restriction, like a thermostat, can increase the negative pressure at the pump and increase the odds of cavitation. Keeping lots of flow to the pump and minimizing it's negative pressure will decrease the chance of cavitation. If the coolant boils pushing past the cap that's a whole other problem, one that won't be caused by not having a simple thermostat like the one in the bird. There are some systems where the thermostat also controls a by-pass route for the coolant and in those a missing thermostat can cause an overheat because it allows the coolant to recirculate within the engine rather than being forced to go to the radiator. In some engines there's a 'restrictor plate' (I don't recall it's proper name) to handle that function instead of relying on the thermostat and I know first hand that a missing one can cause overheats at high RPM; my Ford 351C being one of those.

No dogs or beer, that's why you ran into trouble. Humidity doesn't matter in this case (I think but Ill let mikesail correct me as I have no formal education on this shit). High humidity makes you feel hotter because you rely on evaporation for cooling, a non-leaking engine cooling system has no evaporation cooling so it's just a heat exchange between the radiator and the air. If done right the coasting technique can be very effective, I've done it several times. The problem is that while coasting there's no coolant flow and if you have to power up hard to regain speed you put a rush of heat into the motor/coolant then stop the flow again when you shut down. At the least the engine is going to experience some amount of thermal shock, but it'll be better than a melt-down.