SkooterG
Purveyor of Crooked Facts
Ok, a long story short....................
I am FINALLY hitting the last stages of repairing my crashed FJR from last September when I decided it needed to go bouncing down the Black Rock Playa. This is my FJR#1, the dirty ol whore, and 04 with 95k miles. Last major project is a slight coolant leak I have had since the crash. When I say slight, I mean that in the 4,000 miles I rode the FJR post crash, it never dripped on the ground, and I lost only about an inch worth of coolant in the resevoir. I would smell burnt coolant shortly after start up, and I surmised correctly that small amounts were getting on the headers.
After spending a few hours tracing down the dried coolant trails, I have finally identified the source of the leak. I think. All trails seem to orginate from the bottom of the thermostat housing. In the photo below, its where #32 and #36 join.
So my questions are these:
Does anybody have any idea why this would leak?
According to the parts diagram above, and the service manual (Page 6-9), there is no gasket between the two halves of the thermostat housing. How can this be? I mean there are only two screws holding this thing together for crying out loud.
Has anybody ever had the housing off/apart and know have some familiararity with it?
So far all investigation has been with everything still in place. Why? I am too chicken to start taking stuff apart as this is new territory for me. I am afraid that if I remove the Thermostat Assembly Inlet Pipe (#24) which is required, I will have a new coolant leak worse than the one I have. I know there was a thread fairly recently where re-inserting that damned pipe caused a forum member all kinds of grief.
I guess I want to know that if I do remove all that shit, and take apart the thermostat housing, what the heck am I going to find? What's wrong and how am I going to fix it? And how could the crash have caused it, as it is pretty well protected and isolated? BTW, I ran the FJR today (first time since early January) and let it heat up to 4 bars, where the fan kicked in, and after a few moments, went back down to 3 bars. I let it do this cycle three times. Just a slight amount of moisture on the bottom of the thermostat housing. Not even enough to form even a fraction of a drip.
So I guess my options are to keep on riding and see what happens, try and remove everything myself, and pray I don't f*** anything up, or chance it with a dealer and give my 48 month Y.E.S. it's first try.
Any advice?
Any ideas as to what's going wrong?
BTW, does anybody know what the hell bolt #33 is for? The service manual does not name it, just simply gives a torque spec for it and instructions to repalce the gasket (#34) with a new one.
I am FINALLY hitting the last stages of repairing my crashed FJR from last September when I decided it needed to go bouncing down the Black Rock Playa. This is my FJR#1, the dirty ol whore, and 04 with 95k miles. Last major project is a slight coolant leak I have had since the crash. When I say slight, I mean that in the 4,000 miles I rode the FJR post crash, it never dripped on the ground, and I lost only about an inch worth of coolant in the resevoir. I would smell burnt coolant shortly after start up, and I surmised correctly that small amounts were getting on the headers.
After spending a few hours tracing down the dried coolant trails, I have finally identified the source of the leak. I think. All trails seem to orginate from the bottom of the thermostat housing. In the photo below, its where #32 and #36 join.
So my questions are these:
Does anybody have any idea why this would leak?
According to the parts diagram above, and the service manual (Page 6-9), there is no gasket between the two halves of the thermostat housing. How can this be? I mean there are only two screws holding this thing together for crying out loud.
Has anybody ever had the housing off/apart and know have some familiararity with it?
So far all investigation has been with everything still in place. Why? I am too chicken to start taking stuff apart as this is new territory for me. I am afraid that if I remove the Thermostat Assembly Inlet Pipe (#24) which is required, I will have a new coolant leak worse than the one I have. I know there was a thread fairly recently where re-inserting that damned pipe caused a forum member all kinds of grief.
I guess I want to know that if I do remove all that shit, and take apart the thermostat housing, what the heck am I going to find? What's wrong and how am I going to fix it? And how could the crash have caused it, as it is pretty well protected and isolated? BTW, I ran the FJR today (first time since early January) and let it heat up to 4 bars, where the fan kicked in, and after a few moments, went back down to 3 bars. I let it do this cycle three times. Just a slight amount of moisture on the bottom of the thermostat housing. Not even enough to form even a fraction of a drip.
So I guess my options are to keep on riding and see what happens, try and remove everything myself, and pray I don't f*** anything up, or chance it with a dealer and give my 48 month Y.E.S. it's first try.
Any advice?
Any ideas as to what's going wrong?
BTW, does anybody know what the hell bolt #33 is for? The service manual does not name it, just simply gives a torque spec for it and instructions to repalce the gasket (#34) with a new one.