Joy of Joys, look what I get to do!

Claviger

Aspiring Student
Joined
Jul 25, 2014
Messages
6,934
Location
Olympia Washington
Ride
'21 Z H2, '14 R3R, '02 Daytona 955i
I only hope it's not warped.
Surprise.png


Symptoms:
Spitting coolant after being run (very) hard, wait till it cools, top up radiator, empty coolant overflow and next time it's run hard, it pukes coolant again.

Riding normally with a full power pull here and there is no issue, its when I'm wailing through mountains keeping the motor over 3000 RPM all the time that it pukes a bit of coolant when I turn the bike off.

Running great, pulls very hard, hard enough to pull up to 170 easily yesterday before I ran out of road, and generally is running perfect...except coolant puking more than normal. Plugs - dry, Oil - looks like oil not milky at all, Coolant - green and not chunky or anything, fan - working turns on at 97c.
 
Rob,
Hope this is just another sphincter pucker and all is OK!
If it comes to that - Check with Warpo - I think there are better grade head bolts available.
 
I expect it has stock bolts in it, like my stock fuel pump, stock injectors, starter etc.

I’m done doing business with anyone who claims they know what they’re doing on rockets but can’t provide simple information to customers, going straight to manufacturers and doing all my own measuring testing etc from now on.

@Neville Lush seems to be the only person delivering with quality but we’re a 1/2 world apart.

Just very very disappointed in the condition my bike was returned to me. Initially all seemed well, until I started looking deeper over time.

It was sent back with a Hail Mary Suicide tune and a prayer that it would stay together.
 
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Triumph uses overflow bottles that are intended for other bikes. This means the indicated levels can be incorrect, and keeping the level at the low mark seems to keep the bike from peeing out coolant from time to time.

Check your cap. More than a few Triumphs (not just R3's) have had issues with caps that do not have the required spring rates.

Most of the overflow issues are due to post-boiling. This is the coolant boiling in the block and heads after the bike is shut off. The pressure in the cooling system rises and the valve in the cap lifts the spring - letting coolant flow into the overflow bottle. A lot of this can be reduced with better heat transfer from the coolant. Water cools much better than antifreeze, so running more antifreeze than required is not a good thing.

I live in the Deep South where winter temps rarely drop into the high teens *F, it never gets near freezing in my garage, and I don't ride is sub-freezine temps. As a result, I have no need for antifreeze protection to -60*F that is offered by a 50/50 mix. Instead, I use 20-25% propylene glycol (PG) antifreeze with distilled water and a SMALL amount of surfactant. This still protects down to temps into the teens, prevents corrosion, and lubricates seals.

A surfactant is a detergent that reduces the surface tension of water. Using it in coolant allows the coolant to make smaller bubbles when it boils in localized hot spots. Smaller bubbles are easier to carry away and cool the effected area. Products such as Water Wetter, Purple Ice, etc. are commercial surfactants, and despite their lables, very little is required. More than two cap-fulls in most bikes can coat block internals and reduce cooling. 2-3 drops of Soft Soap or any liquid detergent has the same effect. More is not better.

Make sure you ONLY use distilled or deionized water in your bikes!
Tap water has minerals and chlorine in it that will cause electrolytic corrosion in the cooling system in little time. I had a friend that flushed the coolant out of one of his bikes for track day use with tap water. He rode it this way all summer. He forgot (or never got around) to changing it out afterwards, and left it over the winter. The next spring, the bike leaked water the first time he rode it - all caused by corrosion in less than a year. It took milling the head and block deck to fix it.

If you try the above, and still have issues with heat while riding in a pack, or at low speed stop/go riding, Muzzy's sells aluminum radiator fan blades that are easy to install to the stock fan motor, and push considerably more air than the stock fan.

Not everyone will have issues with running warmer than normal, but for those who do, I hope this helps.

Found this gem of a quote from W. Tripp 10 years ago, going to try a few things before ripping the head off since there are NO other indicators of HG leaking. I have a suspicion it's the post-boiling he mentions, because every time it's left a puddle it's after I've flogged the crap out of the bike for like 10-20 minutes in the mountains and then parked it right away and turned it off. Makes sense she'd be incredibly hot, hot enough to post-boil the coolant given that during the 10-15 minutes its generally held at 10% ish throttle mid corner, run to redline for a gear or two throttling out of a corner, then back down and repeat.

Next time I'm in the mountains Ill flog it and let it idle for a few minutes when done playing to let the cooling system work as intended and see if it prevents the piss puddle.
 
Will do.

At least I'll have the HG stuff sitting around if not needed for this particular issue, for changes I make down the road.
 
Yeah, grabbing a tester and engine block chemical kit tomorrow.

I legit wonder if it's just that the cooling system is struggling to cope.

I know a lot of the high HP bikes only get briefly blasted here and there (drag only bikes for example), and not really flogged like a sport bike, but there are a few high HP R3s I KNOW have the balls ridden off them on occasion and I've never heard of anyone having issues with the cooling system keeping up.
 
This is just a thought .

I have recently replaced and relocated the coolant expansion tank to let more air into Ramair as I feel position of the standard expansion bottle is why No.1 cylinder is running so rich .

The bottle I replaced it with only holds 800 ml of coolant that's less than the standard one so when the motor is cool it only needs about 100ml of coolant in it .

It took a little trial error as I assumed it would need more coolant in there so every time I used it when I parked up it would puke coolant on the floor as I guess the pressure builds after I turned the hot motor off and then over filling the expansion tank .

What I'm saying is have you or are you over filling a non standard expansion tank ?

Also replacing the rad cap seems a good cheap place to start

Just a thought
 
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