Water Pump Problems?

[colin]

My glorious trip through spain & france has been brought down by a little mechanism that i think they call a water pump. In france it is apparently 'le poomp'. it is very unfortunate that i had to learn my 3rd french word and it being 'le poomp'. :haha:

anyway.... to sum up, after 1000 miles on the clock (broken in, serviced at 600), my bike was spewing out antifreeze from the bottom. not being horribly mechanicly inclined, i drove around a bit and hoped it would go away. hehe, not really. i knew it was antifreeze and wasn't sure what to do (i was in france, that town called rouen where they killed joan of arc). eventually got some break down service, yadda yadda, yamaha dealer the next day said it was a bad 'le poomp'. no parts in france, wasn't looking good until they took 'le poomp' out of the showroom FJR and put it in mine. got me through another 3000 miles.

until this weekend.....

big trip, took a stupidly expensive ferry from england to northern spain (the plan being, to drive back). Only to have immigration point out that there was some fluid coming out of my bike. ah hell. didn't i have a new 'le poomp'? so after 36 hours on this boat, i wheeled the bike back to the ticket office to get another ticket to get back to a country that spoke english. 3.5 days on this boat and i'm getting the bike taken back to my dealer tomorrow (to make this more fun, i've got a US import, which means there is no UK warranty so my dealer maintains that, which sucks cuz he is 150 miles north of london).

i guess i can take the commuter out and salvage what's left of my week of vacation. just won't be the same though.....

anybody else ever have problems with 'le poomp'? I start to think it can't be the same thing....perhaps something else causing it to fail? i guess i'll see what the mechanics think tomorrow, pretty annoying though. other than this....great bike

-colin

 

[escapefjrtist]

Sorry to hear about problems with 'le poomp'. Would seem that two failures close together points to another problem...but I don't have any ideas where to send you. Perhaps someone with a service manual can shed more light on a kaput

'le poomp'. No problems here at 9000 miles...

--G

 

[radman]

Sure it's the pump the second time around? Overfill the overflow tank (like after a cooling service), get 'er good and hot, like sitting in traffic while waiting to board a ferry, and once shut down she'll push quite a bit of coolant out the overflow tube, which happens to be almost directly below the pump.

 

[Windjammer]

Agree with Rad. Before I'd replace le poomp again, I'd check coolant level to see if it's actually low. How much coolant are you losing? Drops? Puddles? Green **** spraying out the bottom continuously as you helplessly watch?

I was on a ride this weekend and the 'ol lady noticed some green spooge down on the plastic behind the water pump. She's real observant that way, that's why I keep her around. :angel: Anyway, I take a look and see that it's a fairly small quantity, kept an eye on it and no more. Then the rain washed it off overnite. This was on a new '05 with 3000 miles and t as the first time it really got hot sitting in traffic.

 

[colin]

it's losing puddles.

heat seemed fine outbound, but it was raining and didn't notice any leaking. but later i saw that it caked a bunch of crap up on the exhaust pipe (which wasn't on the other side, so not from the rain).

kept heating up on the return.... I was hoping to make it home. Stayed at 80-90 (because it was rainy/wet for quite a while).... it stayed at 3 bars, which is where i was after getting through UK immigration (while said puddle was forming). After a while it started hitting 4 bars and going back to 3, up to 4, etc. with the fan action. So I figured that was bad and pulled up at a service station and called my AAA equivalent.

The French attempted to explain to me that it looked 'deformed'. something about it being bent instead of flat. I wouldn't know how it got to that state....I haven't hit anything or gone over big rocks or anything. I do travel at high-ish speeds for longer periods of time, but I can't imagine the vibes being that bad for it to screw the water pump. (120-130mph for ~30 minutes? can that be bad? it was the german autobahn, it had to be done!!).

will give the dealer a buzz later today, i really hope they do more than replace the pump, as i agree with you, it's gotta be something else.

-colin

 

[Windjammer]

Just for reference, normally if I'm driving down the road in clean air, at any speed over 25mph, the bike will get down to two bars and stay there. Sitting in traffic it will go up to 4 bars, then the fan kicks in and if it's cool out will pull back down to 3 bars and the fan stops until 4 bars come back up. Never seen 5 bars at all, but then I live in a generally cooler climate. All this seems like normal operation to me, nothing out of the ordinary.

Losing puddles of coolant is a BAD thing. If the stuff gets on the tires it's VERY slippery and you could end up going assoverteakettle. Not to mention possible engine damage from overheating areas of the motor in which air pockets could form if coolant runs low enough. Look in the owners manual and check the coolant level. If you are not comfortable doing maintenance type stuff then get it to the dealer. I wouldn't take it back on the road until I'd run a few heat cycles on it at home, made sure the leak is gone, and it holds a steady coolant level. Ask the dealer to show you how to check, it's easy.

Don't see how the Autobahn run had anything to do with your trouble. Bet it was fun, wish we had that in the states!

 

[colin]

Update from my friendly dealer.

They checked out the pump. They are not convinced the French gave me a new pump for my 550 EUR including labor (which i think included the obligatory 2 hour lunch break). they think they just patched it the seal with some grease which turns out to have given it 2000 miles. Cost to replace said seal: 20 GBP.

I'll have a look at it this weekend when i go pick it up. If I get off my lazy *** I might write Yamaha a nasty letter about their Rouen Yamaha dealer....

-colin

 

[kerhrhr]

Hey Windjammer,

What part of the country you in? I'm down her in San Diego, and I experience the same kind of temperatur cycling you described in your thread. 2 bars on the freeway, as long as I am at least going 30. Three bars in town, heats up to 4 bars, fan kicks on, drops back to 3 bars again.

I was getting kind of concerned about the temperature going up that high during the break in process. I am 3 miles shy of hitting 500 miles. I decided that it was better for me to break it in on the freeway, constantly changing the speed, and keeping the bike cooled down. I go anywhere from about 3400 rpms at 58mph to about 4500 rpms at 79mph. I hit real bad traffic on the north bound 15 the other day, and was hitting 4 bars often and for extended periods of time, so I pulled off for about half an hour to cool it down.

Sounds as if this whole temp thing is going alright. Thanks for the post.

 

[colin]

FYI, I regularly hit 4 bars commuting in London traffic. I don't worry too much, it goes down when the fan kicks in. Sometimes in the morning it doesn't get past 3, as there is less traffic (i get in early) then when I go home.

I don't worry about 4 bars. I did when it hit 5 once when the pump was fuct in france. and I definitely worried when it hit 4 bars when doing 90 in the rain trying to get home on a bad pump. :blink:

This happened on occasion in the break in, though I did get out of london into the countryside, so only in small towns with some stupid traffic light did i ever hit 4. but i'm pretty sure it happened once or twice during break in.

probably not related to my screwed pump.

-colin

(i've realized I've got the most uncreative name on the forum)

 

[radman]

Least it ain't colon.