coolant change on 1986 VFR750F

Discussion in 'Mechanics Garage' started by adante, Apr 12, 2011.

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  1. adante

    adante New Member

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    Howdy folks, first time poster, this is a repost of a qn on ocau.mc which didn't get any replies (except a suggestion to try here), so here I am. Please understand I don't have a lot of mechanical experience so feel free to have a laugh but patience at my lack of knowledge about things obvious would be great :)

    After an overheating mishap I am trying to replace the coolant in my bike - well the remaining coolant that hasn't boiled away

    Couple of questions.

    1. My manual says, in step 6, "disconnect the radiator siphon tube from the reserve tank and drain the coolant into the drain pan". It then shows a picture of my reserve tank and an arrow that I presume is supposed to be point to the siphon tube.

    a. The thing is the arrow points to a cap on my reserve tank. What?
    b. There is another tube much deeper in the bike that goes into the reserve tank. It enters the top of the reserve tank, and the tube looks like continues to go deep to the bottom of the tank. I have pulled on it but I cannot seem to disconnect it, and it it is so deep in it seems like I've had to remove the whole reserve tank in order to do so. Before I go any further, I wanted to check if this is possibly the siphon tube?
    c. When it says drain the coolant, what does it mean? Drain from the siphon tube? If I do manage to draw the (b) tube out will coolant just start coming out of it?


    2. Step 8 says "remove the drain screws and washers on the front cylinder head".

    I only have a standard spanner set. As far as i can tell there is no way to remove these screws without having one of those special spanners that allow you to do multi angle stuff, or start dismantling significant other portions of my bike. Is this normal?


    3. As I've already removed the bulk of the remaining coolant by removing the water pump screw and draining the coolant there, I'm speculating that the above 2 steps is just to remove the residual coolant. I've had about jack of this adventure and am considering just trying to fill the bike up with fresh coolant without performing the steps in q1 and q2. Exactly how foolhardy is this?

    cheers for your input folks
     
  2. stewartj239

    stewartj239 Member

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    My thoughts are that you are correct. You've already removed the majority of the coolant as noted in Step #3. I believe that Step #1 is just saying to siphon out what you can from the overflow bottle. Step #2 is to drain what's left in the cylinders. I'm surpised that you can't remove these as I think thye are just an 8 or 10 mm bolt. Either way, you've got most of it out. I'd say just refill the radiator and overflow bottle with fresh coolant, run it for a bit then recheck the levels.
     
  3. squirrelman

    squirrelman Member

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    Best way to drain is to simply pull the drain bolt under the water pump after removing rad cap. That's all that's necessary. No real need to fret about the small quantity in the overflow can. Absolutely no need to drain water jacket. Fill with straight tap water, run for 2-3 minutes and drain again. Then use distilled water in a 50/50 coolant mix.

    After refilling, start the engine and let it purge air bubbles, then fill to top of cap when cooled down.
     
  4. adante

    adante New Member

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    thanks for your input guys.

    I refilled the coolant, but alas I think the bike was sitting too long and the battery went flat. Tried to start and the engine wouldn't even try to turn over. Charged the battery overnight and went back to try it again, the first couple of times there was a very slight turnover but it stopped almost immediatelly. Put the battery back on charge this evening and will try again tomorrow, but I guess the battery is busto (I hope its the battery, otherwise it'll be far beyond me unfortunately).

    Curiously the negative terminal on battery seems to get quite warm, but the rest of battery has not change temperature noticeably - dunno if this is indicative of anything.
     

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