6th gen coolant change/air bleed.

Followed the procedure in the FSM and I've made a mess. With the cap off, coolant slowly creeps up with the air bubbles and then overflows. Blipping the throttle will bring it back down but only for a second or two before it starts spilling over again.
Any tips or insights would be greatly appreciated.

 

Do it on the sidestand. Then what you describe sounds fairly normal. As the coolant heats up it will expand up (and out) of the neck. Put the cap on and let it heat up fully and observe the reservoir filling up. After one good heat/cool cycle, check the reservoir again and top-up if needed; should be above the minimum line but not near the upper line.

 

ill put it on the side stand. Thanks Terry.
If it didn't cost a fortune and I wasn't doing it in the carport, I wouldn't worry about it so much.

 

Sidestand for the win! Monitor the temp while it is running in the driveway. It is very easy to have air in it and have it get very hot while you're in the house working toward the bottom of the Oreo box.

Get in front of that and put fluid where the air is.

 

Wow! Isn't that getting into head gasket blowing territory ?
I let it heat up over 200 hoping that opening the thermastat would help. Going to try again later today.
Thanks for the reply.

 

Digital temperature gauges freak everyone out. Back when gauges were analogue, 1/4 would be normal riding temperature, 1/2 would be fan cycling temp and above 3/4 was just too hot and time to stop. Those values correspond approximately with 80, 100 and 122C (176, 212 and 252F).

The thermostat should be opening by 176F, and the fan should start cycling around 212-ish.

 

On the first gen models (analog gauges obviously), the owner's manual stated that unless it's in the RED zone, which was ~7/8, it was still in the "normal" operating zone.

 

Just a follow up, I posted in the 6th gen forum about capacity. Looks to me like it is supposed to be 4 liters total but I can only get in 3. Put it on it's side stand today but couldn't get any more air out. Probably end up riding it and see if it works it's way out.

 

Quite correct Mike. I guess my point was that numbers can be scary but anywhere within the "normal" range is doing no harm to the engine. So while 250F is high, it is not dangerously high. That gauge will apparently read up to 132C/270F.

Interesting that on my 2005 ST1300, the gauge has 6 digital sectors rather than numbers. This has allowed (I think) the scale to be quite non-linear to avoid causing alarm. The 3rd sector seems to correspond to anything from about 70 to 110C (my guess) as it gets there quickly and never goes any further even when the engine is being used in very low speed traffic with the fan running.

 

The manual says 2.92L in the engine and radiator, 0.9L in the reserve tank. I doubt you will ever get every last drop out of the engine when draining it. Did you take out the drain under the front head?

 

Yes, I took out the "cylinder drain". Not much came out.

 

Well done! On my VTR1000F (which had a similar drain) I got quite a quantity of cruddy stuff from that area, as I doubt it had ever been opened before (bike was 20+ years old at the time).

 

I don't think so, as others have posted. It is an excellent indicator that after you drain it, and fill it for the flush...there's air in there. You can fix it before it gets too hot and then do the flush while you monitor it.

 

One good thing is the coolant was crystal clear blue, even out of the cylinder drain. The only thing that didn't look good was a few spots on the inside of the reservoir.

 

UPDATE:
Ridden a few times and levels are where they should be. Evidently my system only accepts 3 liters. 1 liter must stay in the engine even after removing the cylinder drain. Putting it on the side stand or undoing one of the hoses might have helped drain more.