[Cailith]

The fins look a bit flattened on the front of the radiator, did it possibly take an impact from a rock or something?

All you can do is take to the dealer and see what they say.

Red 2002 ZX-6R 636

It's not the speed that kills, it's the sudden stop...

 

[Toaster]

Hmmm, tough to say. My guesses

1. Hole/leak in the hose leading to the water pump
2. Leak from the fan switch
3. You have a pin hole somewhere in your radiator

Sorry to hear about the bad luck. If it's a hole in the radiator, the dealer probably won't cover it.

-2000 ZX-6R.....

__________

 

[Grunt_99]

Alright guys, I'm ticked. It's been raining for like 2 solid weeks. Finally get nice on Friday, so I ride the bike to work. I'm looking forward to the next 5 days of awesome riding weather and a LONG weekend.

Quitting time arrives, and I go out & start the bike. Everythign is normal, and there are NO puddles or anything under the bike. My commute home is like 5-10 mins depending on traffic. This was an average day. They are doing major construction in my area to add a municipal water system. Mess everwhere. I have to stop ouside my neighborhood for the construction (for about 2 mins). It's not a real hot day or anything either.

While I'm sitting there, I notice an odd smell. I figure it's from the guys car that's ahead of me. I get home like 3 mins later only to find a puddle of rad fluid ubder the bike. I'm like WTF?! It was fine on the ride in to work, and a very short ride later now it's leaking. Nothing happened. I remember hearing a "DING" noise fairly recently (while riding), but I can't remember when that was. Might have been a stone from the construction.

So I tear off the fairings and can't really see any reason for this crap to be going on. My bike is a 2002 6R, with about 7000 KM's on it, still under warranty.

I could see where it was dripping from (bottom left corner of rad) but not why. There is a big wet spot on the rad fins themselves, but I have no idea why it's seeping out there.

So Sat AM I take it into the dealer. It's still leaking, but not overheating. About 3/4 way to the dealer (15 mins ride total) I'm stopped at a light, and it's just gushing out now. Still not overheating. So I open it up to get there pronto. They were not going to be ablr to look at it till Tuesday (tomorrow).

So I have no idea what's up. Do any of you guys have a clue based on my description and the pics here?
http://community.webshots.com/user/_grunt_99
(go to the "Misc" album)

Think this will be covered under warranty? It better be, I didn't do a thing to it. It was cool riding around fairing-less though while I delivered it to the dealer LOL. I can't say that i know tyoo much about rads. No leaking anywhere else...the overflow bottle/hoses are solid. The ONLY dripping is from the rad, I had paper under it all night and there was not a drop from anywhere else on the bike. HELP... ! [xx(]

 

[Grunt_99]

UPDATE:

Well surprise...they're saying it won't be covered under warranty and took it to a rad shop after consulting with me since it'd be a lot cheaper (they guess) to repair than to buy a new one. They're saying something got in it (ie rock). It pisses me off, cause I know they could easily find a way to cover it thru warranty. They're the only kawi dealer around, so if I want one again next time I'll have to deal with them.

I'll be checking with the rad shop to see what their say is on it. If they don't think a rock pierced it I'm gunna try to sqeeze the $$ outta kawi Canada. Under 7000km, on a bike they sold me, warranty remaining, and no visible signs of damage to the rad. Go figure.

 

[Grunt_99]

I have the bike back finally, and it was indeed a rock...or so the rad shop said. I guess the dealer got to him first LOL. It dind;t cost too much, they patched it and tested it to 25 psi (or whatever the rad test is, I dunno). I was able to finally rid eit today (fairly hard and all is fine. Running at usual temps. I was finally able to partically scrub in my branbd new tires too, but that's another story.

First thing I did was rig up a screen over the rad to (hopefully) prevent anything from hitting it a gain...although it's pretty rare for something to ever hit to begin with. Have a look here if anyone's interested. i think it looks pretty good actually, better than before...and best of all, it hides the ugly patch they put in the rad.

Browse to the Misc ablbum, the new pics are at the bottom of it.
http://community.webshots.com/user/_grunt_99
(hmm...shoudl be 12 pics, but right now only 9 are showing (the older ones)...let me know if you guys can't see the pics. I can when I'm logged in to WS, there might be a bit of a delay.

This was very cheap to do, and if any of you have ever priced up a rac replacment, you might want to cobsider doign this. I will have one of these installed on all my future bikes that have the rad in the front. The RC51 and VTR you see in the album have rads on the sides.

 

[joep411]

how did you do it? I would like to do this mod any help would be appriciated.

 

[Grunt_99]

It's pretty low-tech. First, find some suitable screening material (metal). If it's not silver, I'd recommend you get a can of spray paint and "silverize" it. That way it hides what's behind it better. Black tends to be less visible, and then you can see the screen sorta and what's behind it...and it looks too busy/messy for my tastes.

So use whatever you can find. I couldn't find too much so I ended up going with some aluminum stuff that's supposed to cover your roof gutters to prevent leaves and crap from blocking the water flow. You should be able to find that stuff in any harware store (I got mine at Canadian Tire) in the gutter/eavestroughing(sp?)/downspout section. Unfortunatly, this stuff is not wide enough to do the job in one piece.

The stuff I got was appx 5 inches wide or so. It also has a curve to it, which I decided to leave for the most part, I straightened it a bit though. I measured the lenght and snipped the material to fit. So I put one 5" piece on the right side of the rad...the other 5" piece on the left side, and was left with a gap of an inch or so down the centre. So I cut a 1 inch piece and connected them all together. I just used some wire to twist-tie the links together basically. Make sure there are no sharp peices sticking out anywhere that could peirce the rad.

Then I just fit it in place with some duct-tape while I bent it a bit here and there and worked on the permanent mounting. I mounted it in 6 places, the 4 corners and centre top & bottom. Again, I just used some fairly hefty, yet bend-able, wire to loop through the links and around various mounting spots. The rad has some mounting holes in behind that you can take advantage of, but be creative for the most part. I also bent the screen around the rad where I could to "hug" it and keep it in place. If you want extra securuty, JB Weld would be a good help, but I didn't feel it was necessry. I tested my mounting job and it was good & secure. Don't forget to remove the duct tape when you're done LOL.

So in a nutshell...
(this is easiest with the lower fairings removed)
-Measure the rad
-Cut you screen to fit
-do a test fitting, trim where required etc
-remove screen, and paint it if you want
-duct-tape it in place while you work on the mounting points
-make sure there is nothing to interfere/damage the rad
-it's probably best to have a bit of a gap between the rad and the screen

Another tip...try to sand the edges of the screen, or bend them to make a rounded edge. If it moves a bit you dont want it to snag your horn wires, etc.

I hope that hepls, I don't think I left anythign out. It's really easy, I can't belive I ended up typing this much to describe the process LOL. If you have any more questions, just let me know. You could also use Zip-ties to connect everthing and mount it (probably better since there are no sharp edges) but I couldn't find any.

Also, I later foudn this on ebay...might give you a better idea, and be a better design that you could try to copy...or just buy it if you don't wanna mess around with it. Mine is very similar, but without the frame around the screen.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=34284&item=2415589339
Although, my job only costed me about $20 Candian (appx $12 us) for the screens, paint, and wire. And I've got tons of screen material left now too...now I can have a leaf-free gutter!